


feed your anger like fire

by canticle



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon-Typical Violence, Female Kurusu Akira, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Harassment, Slow Burn, Tw: Kamoshida
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-06-20 10:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15532248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canticle/pseuds/canticle
Summary: Unconsciously, her hand touches her bare neck again. It comes away wet, the thick, shaggy locks of her unwieldy bob cut dripping at the ends.Somedays, Kurusu Akira is so sick of the cost of living she feels like she could vomit fire and drown.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to canticle's most self indulgent fic ever! i don't have much to say as of now besides that this is incredibly close to my heart and i'm so, so looking forward to exploring the game from a female protag's point of view. there's a whole wealth of differences, an entire different world to be explored, and i hope that you enjoy the journey as much as i have been!

Akira can feel the rain on the back of her neck, and somehow that’s the worst part of this whole thing.

The sky in Tokyo is bleak and unforgiving with the towering buildings pushing it back. It makes the rain feel colder, less friendly— not that rain ever is anything less than neutral, but even at this time of year back home the rain is softer, less a foe and more an expected guest, visiting fallow fields and winding streams before taking its leave. Here it collects in dirty puddles in the streets, shimmering with oil and refuse as it trickles its way into the sewers.

She doesn’t like the rain here. Its residue looks the way she feels.

_ This whole situation is bullshit _ , she thinks to herself as she ducks under an awning, the feeling of formless, seething rage bubbling just under her skin as steady an uneasy, constant presence it has been since that night. She still tastes bile and grit, still hears that man’s voice, sees the blood on his face, still feels his hands in her hair, grabbing her ponytail and twisting it around his fist—

Unconsciously, her hand touches her bare neck again. It comes away wet, the thick, shaggy locks of her unwieldy bob cut dripping at the ends.

Somedays, Kurusu Akira is so sick of the cost of living she feels like she could vomit fire and drown.

This fucking city, with all these fucking people, gets under her skin and festers. Every raised voice, every car horn, every looming body sets her fight or flight response crackling, adrenaline coursing through her veins until she aches with it, until she feels like she could fly apart at the slightest touch, at someone even  _ looking _ at her too long. It’s too big. There’s too much. Down in the subway, her  _ map _ doesn’t even work; she had to follow someone in a similar uniform to even get this far, and she’s lost them now.

Not that it matters, because of the  _ fucking rain. _ She wishes Sakura had given her a heads-up; then again, she’s doing her best to avoid his notice as much as possible, and it’s not like he’s thrilled with her presence in the first place. He might not have warned her even if she’d asked. 

She still has a little time. She can wait, just a few minutes, can check her phone and swipe away that obnoxious app that keeps popping up. (Is it a Tokyo thing? Does the infrastructure just download random apps onto your phone for you? She hates that about this fucking city too, then. There is nothing redeemable about Tokyo.)

She barely notices when someone joins her under the awning, too busy staring blankly out into the rain in silent, bitter loathing; she barely looks over when she catches a flash of hair a few shades too light to be natural.

Or— huh. Foreigner? The girl beside her finishes shaking the rain off of her hood and meets Akira’s eyes for a moment as Akira tries to place her features. Not fully Japanese. Not American. Too pale, too blond. It suits her, somehow. She’s got a face that begs for a magazine cover to put itself on. She’s got—

She’s got an arm coming for Akira’s face, and without thinking Akira sways, takes a scrambling step back, leaves the girl’s painted nails hanging in the air between them like an accusation.

Akira barely notices her heart rate picking up until it flutters under her skin like it’s trying to reach escape velocity. That’s normal by now, just another thing to despise about this situation, another thing to make her so angry she seethes, like the stupid round glasses with their stupid lenses and the water droplets still clinging to them, like the way the wet hair sticks to the back of her neck.

“There’s a— sorry,” the foreigner girl says in incredibly fluent Japanese. Akira tries not to show her surprise, noticing her uniform a moment later. “You’ve got a petal in your hair— here.” She points on her own head, and after a moment Akira lifts a (shaking, goddamnit,  _ goddamnit _ ) hand.

Yeah. A fallen sakura petal. Too early, or too late; she hasn’t even  _ seen _ a sakura in Tokyo so far. The thought distracts her, but only a little, so that when a car pulls up and a strange man offers her a ride, it startles her badly enough to set her heart rate skyrocketing again.

She’s fuming by the time the boy with dyed yellow hair rockets past her, only to turn and square her shoulders when he catches her looking past him, quizzing her as if she knows  _ anything about what he’s talking about. _ Kamoshida Suguru could be the prime minister for all she knows about Shujin; she doesn’t even know how to  _ get _ there from here.

Her phone vibrates in her clenched fist. She ignores it. It’s probably that goddamn app reinstalling itself again. She’s more than ready to take a hammer to her phone if it’ll solve the problem.

 

What doesn’t solve her problem is a  _ giant fucking castle where the school should be, apparently. _

 

What doesn’t solve her problem is a  _ man in a glittery cape and a pink speedo. _

 

What doesn’t solve her problem is  _ moving suits of armor _ . What doesn’t solve her problem is being trapped, being shoved against a wall, being almost blind with panic, hearing the blond guy telling her to run, telling her to get free, telling the speedo-man that it’s him he wants, what doesn’t solve her problem is useless  _ fucking _ sacrifice.

 

No. 

  
But what  _ does _ solve her problem is a vow made deep inside herself, a vow that swears she’ll never have to be helpless again, a vow that gives her the power to strike back, to hit first and last and  _ hard. _

She tears the mask off her face as soon as it materializes, and uses the pain as fuel to ignite the rage inside of her.

_ “Come!”  _ she howls.  _ “Arsene!!” _

 

The boy’s name is Sakamoto, she finds out sometime after; not that it really matters, as long as he keeps his distance. He’s loud, too loud for the way she feels she needs to slink around here; he walks with a hitch in his step that sounds glaringly obvious behind her near-silent crawl. His hair is too bright. His shirt is, too. Everything about him screams to be noticed.

He only tries to touch her once, after they’ve rounded more corners than Akira can count and lost the sounds of loud clanking to the darkness behind them. She’s back in her school uniform— not that she’d noticed when she’d changed clothes the first time, but the heavy drape of leather had felt  _ right _ somehow, in a way that leaves her aware of its loss.

Sakamoto’s been talking; Akira hasn’t been listening. Not until he reaches out and grabs her sleeve.

In a heartbeat rage and fear ignite. Fire flashes across her face. There’s a dagger in her hand and she’s ready to use it—

And Sakamoto reels back, hands up, as non-threatening as he can manage. “Shit, sorry! You’re a twitchy one, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you be?” she asks him without meaning to, only half aware of the snarl wrinkling her mouth. Sakamoto takes another step back. “Shut up and stay that way. There might be more.”

There aren’t, really. There’s only a long stretch of hallway, of cramped cells filled with people their age that make Sakamoto mutter something angrily under his breath. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t  _ care. _ She just wants to get  _ out _ of this nightmare place with magic monsters and grown men in half-capes and get her fucking probation over with.

Only then they find a monster cat, and the monster cat promises them a way out if Akira helps free it, and of  _ course _ they get attacked again, because why would life be kind to her  _ now  _ of all times and places?

The minute the mask materializes, she rips it off again. The thing— the magic monster—  _ persona, _ the monster cat calls it, whatever it is, it  _ speaks _ to her in a way that resonates in her blood, a way that tells her how to step and twist and drag, take the dagger she’s been gifted and sink it into a back, a chest, a thigh, a leg. Anything to cause damage. Anything to make them back off first. Make them bleed. Make them break, if you have to.

And isn’t it ironic that here in the middle of some alternate dimension, with a dagger in her hands and blood in her face and fire in her eyes and Sakamoto staring at her in awe, she’s the safest and calmest she's felt in the last six months?

He doesn’t speak to her again directly, not until after they’ve escaped, not until she’s stood under the gaze of the real Kamoshida, felt it linger on her like a foul smell, a bad taste at the back of her mouth. (The way he looks at her sends alarm bells ringing up and down her spine.) After classes, though, still stinging from Kawakami’s disinterested gaze, seething from her lackluster warning, he asks her to meet him up on the roof.

She doesn’t.

She goes back to Leblanc, head bowed but shoulders straight under the disdainful scolding she gets from Sakura-san, and books it up into the attic before the shake in her hands or the tears in her eyes can give her away.

Akira doesn’t sleep that night.

 

Another day, another black-and-red uniform followed to a certain point; she’s under the same awning she was yesterday, she’s pretty sure, but this time the sky is a clear, cloudless blue and there’s no vulgar boy in sight.

There  _ is _ another blond though— the foreigner, the one who reached for her yesterday. Akira gives her a wide berth out of both courtesy and wariness, but hesitates. The speedo king...the looks he gave her in that weird castle set off hundreds of alarm bells ringing in her skull, and she’s  _ nothing _ compared to this girl.

It’s not her place. She’s only been here for two days, for fuck’s sake.

But when the car pulls up again and the foreigner’s shoulders slump, Akira speaks up. “Sorry, but… I think I’m lost. Do you think you could tell me how to get to Shujin from here?”

“Oh— yeah, sure.” She steps closer to Akira; the car hesitates, then pulls away. Out of the corner of her eye, Akira sees the man inside scowl, and she can’t help the swell of satisfaction that wells up inside her. “C’mon, it’s just this way.”

They take the same shortcut; nothing funky happens. Maybe yesterday was just a shared hallucination. That’s what she wants to think, desperately and unendingly. Just let her get through this one year, just one month and one day at a time, let her follow the pretty blonde and sit through her classes and then go back and do it all over again, a stretch of endless crushing weight that makes her blood boil just thinking about it— 

“You should be wary of Kamoshida,” the blonde girl says abruptly. It takes a moment to register; Akira’s legs are short enough that she has to trot to keep up. “He’s not a nice man.”

“I can tell,” Akira says cautiously. She slants her gaze sideways; the blonde’s hands dig into the straps of her bag like she wants to strangle something. “I’ll look out. Thanks.”

“They say you’ve got a criminal record.” The blonde’s voice is lower this time, but the look she gives Akira is anything but nervous. “It’s all around the school.”

“Is it.”  _ Fantastic. _ No wonder everyone was looking at her like she’d personally come to their houses and knifed their new birthday puppies one by one.

“There’s already all sorts of rumors going around. Congratulations, you’re the most exciting thing that’s happened at Shujin since—”

“Hey!” A new voice cuts in, and Akira jumps before she can help it. It sets her fuming immediately, a mood not improved by a shock of bottle-blond hair and a loud, overpowering voice. “Hold up!”

Sakamoto again, and something changes on the blonde girl’s face; it’s almost funny to watch the way it contorts. “You were late with him yesterday,” she says in a rush— Sakamoto’s still at the end of the shortcut alleyway, and isn’t in all that much of a hurry to catch up with them now that they’re stopped. “Did you— do you know him?”

“I’ve been here for two days. I don’t know anyone.” She blunts the edges of her voice just a touch, turns them from dagger to sledgehammer. There’s no need to be rude right now, especially not with Sakamoto pulling up beside them. “What do you want.”

“You didn’t meet me on the roof.” He has the gall to sound wounded, like she’d really let him down or something.

“I didn’t.” She blinks slow and languid, taking in his frustrated expression, the way he darts glances at the blonde girl like he wants to say something but is holding himself back.

“What do you want with her, Ryuji?” The blonde girl asks with sudden sharpness. She turns on her heel and puts herself between the two of them in an action that makes both Akira and Sakamoto blink. “You already made her late yesterday; you  _ know _ how the rumors spread around here.”

“ _ I  _ made her— it wasn’t  _ my _ fault!” Sakamoto protests. He whirls to face her. Akira can’t help but shift a defensive step back. “Tell her! Tell her about the castle!”

“What castle?” The blonde demands. “Ryuji, you’re not making any sense!”

“She knows!” The pointing finger he flings at her makes her cringe, makes her grit her teeth and square her stance, because if he wants a fight she’ll  _ give  _ him one. The strength from whatever happened yesterday still flows through her veins, still speaks the way of knives, and— 

And the blonde girl steps forward, right into that finger, making Sakamoto yank his hand back. “Oh, come  _ off _ it already, Ryuji! Don’t drag someone else into your vendetta with—” 

_ “My _ vendetta?! Don’t even  _ start  _ with me, Ann, just because that pervy teacher’s your goddamn  _ boyfriend— _ ”

Akira’s phone vibrates in her pocket. She pulls it out— the app, the weird one, has activated and spread across the screen.

_ [Candidate recognized,] _ the screen reads.  _ [Travel records found in search history. Kamoshida Suguru. Shujin Academy. Castle. Begin navigation?] _

The yelling is getting louder. The app screen throbs with every beat of her heart.

As if in a dream, she slides her thumb over and presses  _ confirm. _

The world shivers itself apart.

  
  


Ahh, quiet.

If hopping into alternate realities is what it takes to break up a fight, Akira might have to start using this app more often. The weight of leather on her shoulders and back is instantly soothing; the shocked looks of the two suddenly silent blonds even more so.

Sakamoto recovers first, jabbing his finger right up into the blonde girl’s face. “See?!  _ See?! _ I effin’  _ told _ you, Takamaki, but  _ no, _ you’re too  _ good _ to listen to ol’ Ryuji now that you’re back from globetrotting, huh?”

Takamaki smacks his hand away in a move that makes Akira nod appreciatively. She’s fiery; Akira’s barely exchanged twenty words with her and she already appreciates her. “Shut up! What  _ is _ this place?”

“It’s an effin’  _ castle! _ What does it  _ look  _ like?!”

“I can  _ see _ it’s a castle, Ryuji! Where did it come from?! This is where you dragged this poor girl to?!”

Their voices are rising again. It makes Akira anxious; she takes a step forward, the heel of her boot clicking loud and clear against the cobblestone. “The two of you need to keep your voices down,” she says, darting glances at the castle’s wide entry doors. “We don’t want that man to hear us.”

“What  _ man _ ?” Takamaki says, unnerved and frustrated. She’s finally taking in all the weirdness around them— the distortions in the sky, the neon ripple in every pane of glass and every puddle of water on the ground. “What— how did we even  _ get  _ here, Kurusu?!” She pauses. “And what are you  _ wearing?!” _

She’s startled before she remembers that Takamaki is in her class— that Takamaki sits in front of her, in fact, and heard her sullen introduction the day before. “It… there’s a long story,” she says, unwilling to get into it more when at any moment that fucker in the speedo could pop out of a balcony and start flashing them again. Aren’t there any police in this world? Can you arrest an alternate copy of a teacher for speedo on main?

As for the clothes...she runs a hand down the leather jacket, admiring the way it swishes around her ankles, the way it makes her feel like she could blend into any of the shadows in the castle courtyard. “Dunno. Morgana said it had something to do with the way—”

Hey, hold on. She checks her phone again, just in case, but just like yesterday the only app that works is the weird one, the “Metaverse Navigator.” Is that what this is? Are people just being catapulted into this place left and right?

And where  _ is _ Morgana, anyway? It shouldn’t matter to her whether or not he’s still around, but he did help them out yesterday… It’s still early enough that if she’s fast, she can take a peek into the cells and make sure he didn’t get caught again.

(It’s not because she wants to linger here in this Metaverse, where everything is still and calm and everything that’s come up against her she’s stabbed to death with her own two hands.) 

She starts ghosting her way towards the castle wall. The presence from yesterday is still here with her now, forefront in her mind like an odd, not entirely unpleasant taste, like heavy fog on her skin. It shows her how to move, how to slink, how to put her feet so her steps make no sound unless she wants them to. It’s nice. It’s good. It’s almost enough to make her forget she dragged two other people in here with her, until she’s standing below the hole in the wall that she and Sakamoto escaped through yesterday morning.

It’s...it’s a lot higher up than she realized. Maybe if she pulls out her knife, she can take a running start and dig it into a crack?

“Kurusu!” Sakamoto shouts. “Kurusu, what are you doing?!”

Holding a knife, apparently. She tucks it away and turns just in time to see Takamaki elbow him with a hiss. “I want to see if Morgana is still there,” she says with a shrug. “He was helpful. I wanted to thank him.”

“You— I’m sure he’s fine, but we gotta get outta here, we’re gonna—”

“I’ll come with you,” Takamaki says, already shrugging off her school bag and tucking it under a nearby bush. 

“You’ll what,” Akira says flatly, and “You’ll  _ what?! _ ” Sakamoto screeches, but Takamaki isn’t swayed. She stares up at the hole with Akira, both hands on her hips— she could probably jump and reach the lip. “Takamaki-san, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“There are...things in there.” She gives a brief sketch of the monsters, expecting Takamaki’s disbelieving expression. “There’s also— what’s his name?”

“Kamoshida,” Sakamoto says bitterly, joining them in staring at the hole. “Ann, you’re not gonna believe this— he’s prancin’ around in there in a half-cape and a speedo, actin’ like he owns the place. He do that for you?”

The look Takamaki gives him drips venom.

There’s history there that Akira really, truly gives zero shits about. “If the two of you keep running your mouths, I don’t want either of you in there. You remember those things, Sakamoto? If one of them catches us, you’ll both be a liability.”

That shuts him up long enough for Akira to take two steps back and reach for her dagger again. Years of gymnastics and dancing have made her strong and tough, though it’s been months since she’s so much as thought about practicing. The stone walls are rough enough that maybe, if she gets a toe into a crack—

“Kurusu,” Sakamoto says, almost cautiously. “Do you want a hand up?”

She looks at him sharply, but he doesn’t look….like he means it in any untoward sort of way. He’s not eyeing her up. (She’s not wearing anything that he could catch a glimpse of anything in, either.) He just looks subdued, and like he wants to help. “See, if I put my hands like this—” he laces his fingers together and shows her— “I could prolly toss you up there. You don’t look like you weigh nothin’, anyway.”

“You can’t just talk to a girl about her weight like that, Ryuji,” Takamaki mutters. When she catches Akira’s glance, though, she shrugs. “You might as well, Kurusu-san. He’s harmless, but he’ll get you up there. And then me,” she adds, stiffening at Sakamoto’s overexaggerated grimace. “What’s that face for, Ryuji?!”

“I dunno, Ann, there’s kind of a difference between the two of you…”

“Ryuji, I will  _ end  _ you,” Takamaki says, flat and even.

It’s awkward, but when she takes a quick hop into his palm he sends her flying, high enough that she needs to grab onto the crumbling lip of the infiltration point and turn her upward momentum into a roll through. Outside, she hears Takamaki make an impressed noise, and a quiet “God  _ damn _ ” from Sakamoto.

Takamaki’s red-painted nails grab onto the ledge next; there’s a grunt of effort as she heaves herself in. Sakamoto takes a running start as Akira watches— he pulls himself up in a swift, easy motion that belies at least a few years of practice. An athlete? He can’t be a runner, not with that limp, that uneven gait. Maybe a field sport?

Not that she cares.

“The two of you need to stay behind me,” she tells them, low and fierce. “There are things in here that can and  _ will _ kill us, Takamaki-san. I don’t want to be long, there’s just someone I want to find.”

“There’s another person in here?” Takamaki says curiously.

“Yeah, a weird little monster cat. Says his name’s Monamona or somethin’,” Sakamoto tells her as Akira slips off the wooden shelf onto the floor below. She lands silently, something that the presence inside of her approves of. “Hey, Kurusu, hold on, wait for us.”

“Then hurry up. I don’t want you holding me back.”

It’s a little more nervewracking now, creeping along the corridors with Takamaki and Sakamoto a few paces behind her. The halls are emptier; they pass through a wide receiving room flanked with staircases and back into the dungeon area below. Morgana isn’t in the cages again, and that’s a relief, but the silence is unnerving, broken only by their footsteps and the sound of running water.

“Wh-what’re all these cells for?” she hears Takamaki whisper as she checks a corner. “This is crazy...the two of you were really in here yesterday?”

“Yeah,” Sakamoto says, quietly enough that Akira doesn’t berate him. “It— Ann, it was  _ crazy. _ Kamoshida was— he was  _ here, _ he was in this ridiculous outfit, and he had these suits of armor with him that just— they  _ melted into monsters _ , and Kurusu had to fight ‘em. It was  _ cool as hell. _ ”

Another corner clear; Akira creeps further into the depths as Sakamoto and Takamaki talk behind her, checking every place they’d been yesterday. She’s never had a head for directions before, but in here there’s something that speaks to her, something that tells her she treads familiar ground.

Nothing’s here. No more prisoners, no more guards. It’s as relieving as it is unnerving, and finally Akira straightens and sweeps back past her two tagalongs. “He’s not here. I’m leaving.” 

“You’re— just like that?” Takamaki cocks her head as Akira draws up alongside the two of them. “You don’t want to explore any more?”

“I don’t want to be late for class again. There’ll be trouble.” 

“Same,” Sakamoto groans. “We might be cuttin’ it close even now.”

Akira doesn’t bother being sneaky on the way out; there’re no guards, and no reason to slink. She still sticks to the shadows as a matter of preference, and doesn’t bother trying to stifle the conversation behind them until she hears a faint  _ clank. _

Without thinking she’s over the back of a nearby chair and crouching, peering out. The voices behind her have gone silent; when she peeks, Sakamoto is watching her with furrowed brows, and Takamaki is trying to look in every direction at once. She waits, but the clinking travels away, and as she stands back up Takamaki hurries to her side, wary now.

They move more quickly, across the bridge and through the halls. Too quickly. They’re almost up to the wide receiving room when Akira hears the voices, but this time there’s nowhere to hide. “Get back,” she tells the two of them, not even looking as she bounds up to the doorway and peers through the crack.

Ugh. Speedo. 

Speedo-king, and a whole entourage of the suits of armor— the Shadows, enough that the presence in her head fuzzes with wariness at the thought of taking them all on. Speedo-king, the Shadows— and Morgana, bound in a tiny lump in a ring of enemies. He’s yelling, hissing, spitting mad, and Speedo-shida’s staring down with an expression that brings a frisson of rage to boil just under her skin.

She  _ hates _ men that make that expression, men that play with the people under them like toys just to crush them. Her dagger is in her hand before she realizes it, and there’s alarmed noises behind her. “Kurusu,” Sakamoto hisses, “What are you—”

“Stay  _ back, _ ” she snaps, and eases through the door.

No one’s noticed her. She bolts for the stairs, gets high enough up that she’s behind them all. If she jumps, she can grab hold of the chandelier, use it to build up momentum, and get both her boots into Speedo-shithead’s ugly-ass face. From there, if she calls Arsene, she can probably take out at least one of the Shadows while she’s sawing Morgana free. Then, they can both fight through, grab Takamaki and Sakamoto, and get the hell out of there.

It doesn’t go like that.

She grabs the chandelier and her gloved fingers slip on the smooth crystal, sending her planned swing into an uncontrolled fall. She still lands boot-first on Kamoshida and sends them both tumbling, but the hot flare of pain that shoots up her ankle tells her that she’s miscalculated, and badly.

“It’s— you?!” Morgana screeches as she scrambles forward, dagger out. “But— why?!”

“Shut up and get ready!” she barks, gets one, two, three ropes parted before an armored boot slams into her ribs and sends her flying. 

She lands dazed and confused, avoids the next Shadow’s foot slamming down by sheer luck, but when she tries to scramble to her feet the pain in her ankle flares hot and sickening, sends her staggering back down with a cry.  _ Fuck! _ Arsene comes at her call, but one of the Shadows melts down into some sort of horse-shaped thing, and the attack slides off like oil on water.

One gross hoof pins the tail of her coat to the ground. Another lands on her chest and presses down hard enough that she sees stars, that the edges of her vision go dim. She turns her head, hoping against hope— but no, Morgana barely managed to get free of the ropes before another Shadow got him pinned.

_ Fuck. _ When she lifts her hand to her mask to try and summon Arsene again, the hoof presses down hard enough that she thinks she hears something crack.

The world goes hazy around the edges, a kaleidoscope of colors spinning and wheeling and throbbing. Her dagger is half a foot away. It might as well be miles, especially when the speedo asshole comes to kneel beside her, that awful expression on his face.

“Well, well, well,” he says, those eerie eyes and that grating tone with the subharmonics that rake down her spine like nails on a chalkboard. “If it isn’t our little escapee from yesterday. Where’s Sakamoto, huh? I’m sure he’s around here somewhere. The little brat’s never been able to resist a scene. Did he tell you about me?”

“Didn’t have to,” Akira wheezes. “The asshole vibes just drip right off you.”

Speedo-shithead throws his head back and  _ laughs. _ “A feisty one! I’m going to  _ like _ breaking you.”

And he  _ touches her face. _

Akira whips her head around and sinks her teeth into the web between his thumb and forefinger until she tastes blood, until she hears him howl, until his fist meets her nose with a crack that vibrates through her skull. She doesn’t let go until the hoof on her chest stomps down, forcing air out through her nose and mouth, making her gag.

There’s iron in her mouth and bright gold blood blossoming on his hand, welling up in the semicircle of teeth marks that she left. Akira spits the rest into his face and bares her teeth at him. “Touch me again and next time I’ll take off a finger.” The terror rides just as high as the rage in her breast, both fueled by pain, by entrapment, by the knowledge that she might not be getting out of this alive.

But like  _ hell _ will she go down without a fight.

Shadow Kamoshida’s face goes dark with rage and pain as he reels back out of the way of her teeth (she snaps them together again as he leaves, hatred pulling her expression into a rictus grin). “Maybe I won’t bother with you,” he says, low and seething. “Maybe I’ll just leave you to the shadows as a plaything.”

“Not man enough to take down a girl, Kamoshithead?” Akira snarls. Her free hand slaps for her dagger. It’s so far away.  _ It’s so far away. _ Her heartbeat is pounding in her chest, in the throb of her ankle and her nose. She feels the blood pooling warm and sticky down her cheek. She’s never felt more alive. She’s never felt more trapped. She’s never wanted to kill anyone more in her life. 

And that’s when the chair comes flying down from the staircase and beans Kamoshida in the head.

It startles everyone, the Shadow on top of Akira included— it lifts its hoof just long enough for Akira to swing herself across the floor and slap her hand on her dagger, whipping herself upward to sink it into its leg. The Shadow shrieks and reels backward, sending spatters and gouts of black blood everywhere. It gives her just enough leeway to roll over three times, the tails on her coat tangling her legs, and slice Morgana’s last bonds. He hisses when the blade scrapes him, but she doesn’t have time to apologize, already trying to heave herself onto her feet.

On the balcony above, Sakamoto throws another chair. 

This one hits the Shadow nearest Kamoshida with enough force to send it crashing to the floor, melting out of existence. “Kurusu!” he shouts. “Get out of there!” 

“Sakamoto!” Shadow Kamoshida howls, furious and frenzied. “So now you finally show up! Too little, too late as always, huh, track team traitor?!”

“Hey,  _ shut your ass up, _ you nasty old man!” Sakamoto shouts back. He throws something else, something bright and shiny, but it misses. With a gesture from Kamoshida, two of the Shadows break off to start heading up either side of the staircases. “No one here gives a shit about anything that comes outta your mouth!”

“I should have broken your other leg when I had the chance, shouldn’t I?” Kamoshida says, a horrifying sentence that Akira can barely process when she’s wavering, balanced on one leg, staring at the Shadows advancing on her. “I thought I’d be nice, be kind, leave you something to walk on after you’d fucked it up so badly for the rest of your team. You never could keep your fists to yourself, could you, Sakamoto? Just like your father!” 

Sakamoto lets out a shout of pure rage. He hasn’t seen the Shadows advancing on him yet. “Sakamoto!” Akira wheezes, “on your sides!”

He’s not listening. He’s got his hands up to his face like he’s rubbing his eyes, and Akira’s about to shout again when Morgana hisses in a breath beside her.

She sees it too. Not his eyes.

A mask.

“I’m through taking your shit, Kamoshida!” Sakamoto howls. “I’m through layin’ down and watchin’ you steamroller over people! This shit stops _ NOW!!!” _

And he rips the mask off his face.

Things get a little hectic after that. There’s lighting fizzling through the air, filling the room with a hot electric scent. There’s wind whipping up around her as Zorro, via Morgana, sends things flying. Arsene comes when she calls, again and again and again, hitting harder and harder until the only Shadow left in the room is Kamoshida, bloodied and panicked. Akira takes a limping step forward, her dagger already raised and pointing.

Morgana steps in front of her. “Stop! You can’t kill him.”

“And why the hell not?” Sakamoto shouts from the balcony, swinging himself over the 20-foot drop like it’s nothing. He’s wearing all black now too, interrupted only by the yellow of his steel-knuckled gloves and the ascot, red as blood, around his neck. It’s a good look on him— it feels more right here, more real than school uniforms. He stalks up to them— to  _ them,  _ not towards Kamoshida like Akira’d thought he would, a baseball bat heavy in his hands. She watches him dispassionately, but all he does is take up a position at her right side. 

Her weak side, the one she’s favoring, the one that she still can’t put pressure on. 

It makes the hackles on the back of her neck raise, but there’s nothing she can do about it now. Kamoshida’s staring the three of them down, a solid united front.

Akira pinpoints the moment he realizes he’s outclassed. It’s easy; he starts easing his way backwards, looking frantically every which way.

“You can’t kill him,” Morgana repeats, one of his little white paws resting on her good leg. “If you kill the ruler of a Palace, whoever owns the palace will also die.”

It brings her up short, dampens her enthusiasm for vengeance. She’s not a murderer, not even of a bonafide shithead like Kamoshida. “We’re leaving,” she says, fighting not to show any of the pain in her voice. “If you follow us, Kamoshida, we  _ will _ retaliate.”

“If you step foot in this castle again I’ll kill you,” Shadow Kamoshida promises with clenched fists and nothing but rage in his voice. “I’ll kill you, but I’ll make you beg for it first.”

“You won’t be the first to try,” Akira sneers, and spits more blood at the ground. It hits Kamoshida’s foot, and she calls it as much of a victory as she can.

 

She doesn’t buckle until she’s outside, until the mask and the coat wisp away and the pain stays, the blood stays, smeared tacky across her cheek and into her hair. She feels like she’s dissociating; one minute she’s stubbornly limping forward on her own two feet, the next she’s headed face-first towards the ground.

Two sets of arms catch her, and she’s tired, she’s so  _ tired _ of fighting, but she struggles anyway until she’s back on her own two feet, until she’s swaying dizzy and lighthearted, and then Morgana steps forward.

“Hold still,” he says, his paws full of green light, his persona a faint, trembling outline behind him. “This will help.”

Takamaki hands her a water bottle afterwards; there’s just enough in there to rinse her face clean, to swish the old blood out of her mouth and spit it onto the ground. Her nose is straight again, though the pain in her ankle lingers in a muted, blunt throb. “Thank you,” she says to them both, and then again to Sakamoto, hovering over her at an angle that makes her shoulders tighten. “You came at a good time.”

“Glad I could help,” Sakamoto says, a bright grin on his face. “That was  _ amazin’. _ So that’s the power of a Persona?”

She shrugs. Guess so.

Her phone chimes in her pocket; she pulls it out.

8:20 AM. They’ve barely been in here for half an hour. It feels like days. She’s  _ exhausted. _

She’s also going to be late for homeroom if they linger here any longer. She drags the icon for the metaverse app up and out, watches it flare, feels the world shiver and resettle more heavily on her shoulders, and the alleyway coalesces around the three of them.

No. The  _ four _ of them. There’s a black-and-white cat sitting prim and proper by Akira’s feet, to everyone’s surprise. “What the hell?” Sakamoto says, jerking backwards. “Is that—”

“Quiet down before someone hears you, idiot!” The cat hisses— and it  _ literally _ hisses, Akira can hear it, but somewhere between her ears and her brain it translates into actual words. It’d be alarming if she had any energy to feel alarmed. “It’s me! I’m still Morgana!”

“But,” Takamaki says, crouching down to examine his bright yellow collar, picking up one little foot at a time, “why aren’t you still—”

“Can we talk about this later?” Akira asks wearily, skirting around the cluster towards the school building. “I’d rather not be late again.”

There’s a frenzy of footsteps behind her, easily catching up— Sakamoto to her right, Takamaki to her left, Morgana-the-cat trailing behind until they reach the mouth of the alley. “We  _ gotta _ talk about it, though, right?” Sakamoto says. He stands like he’s trying his best to catch her gaze, when all she wants to do is keep it rooted to the ground like it’s lead-weighted. “Kurusu, meet me on the roof for lunch today. Don’t brush me off again!”

“I’ll come with you,” Takamaki says from her other side, firm and no-nonsense. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t make things weird. Besides...I kinda wanna know more about that place.”

Morgana curls against her ankle, a surprisingly soothing touch. “I can tell you anything you need to know about the Metaverse,” he boasts. “Can I come in with you? That way we won’t waste any time.”

_ What the hell, _ Akira thinks with a shrug, and bends down to let Morgana eel his way into her schoolbag. “As long as you’re quiet. I’ve got enough attention on me as it is, I don’t need any more for towing a cat with me.”

He’s a heavy weight, but not unmanageable. It pulls on her back, balancing and unbalancing at the same time, keeping her rooted in the here and the now with no room to spare worrying over the Metaverse like a raw spot.

Time enough for that later.

She squares her shoulders and heads up the stairs, Sakamoto and Takamaki at her sides.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What she does catch is that the other world, the Metaverse, is just as real a place as this world. That her true self resides there. That everyone’s true selves do. That Kamoshida is a real shithead, and that they have an opportunity to change that.
> 
> But...should they?
> 
> It’s not Akira’s fight. It’s not Akira’s problem.
> 
> (Until it is.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: sexual harassment, some gross slurs, kamoshida, go ahead and visit the end notes for mild spoilers if you need more detail

There was a sign on the door leading to the roof.

_Was,_ because Sakamoto apparently pulled it down and tossed it to the side before Akira got up the stairs, leaving her with a door propped open with a brick and a crumpled piece of paper in the corner of the hallway. She can already hear bickering floating in with the afternoon breeze, with the weak spring sunlight that’s still a little too bright for her eyes right now.

Sakamoto’s here, of course, and so is Takamaki, pigtails blowing out behind her in the early April breeze. They’re face to face over a desk, hissing and spitting at each other like a couple of cats. It’d be funny if she wasn’t so tired.

Her unnatural exhaustion has persisted throughout the entirety of morning classes, and someone grabbed the last packaged bread right out from underneath her hand, sneering at her when she’d looked up. This whole school has some sort of vendetta against her, she _knows_ it. The whispers in the halls, the insidious, threatening, looks, the _Metaverse._ She didn’t want this. She would’ve been happy to live her year out in seething silence, just to return to her hometown and—

Do what?

There’s nothing there for her anymore, after all. Expelled from her school, all but disowned by her parents, shunned by her classmates and neighbors alike? No one wants a bad girl, a rotten egg, a filthy—

Her hand hits the doorknob a little harder than necessary as she pushes it open; at Sakamoto’s shocked look, she forces her expression into something less of a snarl. “Kurusu,” Takamaki greets her, her back still to Akira. “Glad you made it!”

The words, if coming out in any other manner, by any other voice, would sound snippy, accusatory. From Takamaki, they feel genuine. Akira grunts and sets her bag onto one of the clustered desks so Morgana can hop out. He shakes his fur into order and wrinkles his nose at Sakamoto, shoots an appreciative glance at Takamaki and Akira herself, and curls his tail around his paws.

He says a lot of things in the next twenty minutes or so. Most of it goes over Akira’s head.

She’s never been the smartest. She’s well aware of that. Her grades have stayed at solid B’s for most of her school career. She doesn’t understand a lot of the concepts that Morgana lays down, but that’s okay. She doesn’t really need to understand them.

What she _does_ catch is that the other world, the Metaverse, is just as real a place as this world. That her true self resides there. That _everyone’s_ true selves do. That Kamoshida is a real shithead, and that they have an opportunity to change that.

But...should they?

It’s not Akira’s fight. It’s not Akira’s problem.

 

* * *

 

 She’s about to leave for the day when a guy she vaguely remembers from her homeroom, a Nishima or something, bruised and pale in a way that vibrates uncomfortably in her hindbrain, comes up to her in the hallway. She moves past him, but he reaches for her sleeve, his voice soft. “U-um, Kurusu-san...I have a message for you.”

She still almost ignores him, but his next words make her pause. “It’s— Kamoshida-sensei wants to see you in his office.”

He does, does he? She turns and looks at Nishima, and whatever he sees in her eyes makes him flinch. “I— it’d be best if you went,” he mumbles under his breath. “Kamoshida— he gets...impatient.”

He can stay impatient for all she cares, but she’s so aware of her tentative status at this school that it would be madness to ignore him. Especially if he has as much sway here as everyone says he does. So she nods curtly and turns on her heel, feeling Morgana’s weight shift in her bag.

She passes a girl she vaguely recognizes on the way there. Pale, dark hair, bruised like Nishima— Akira helped her gather some papers that afternoon. Her voice was soft and her eyes were kind, one of the first kind pairs she’d seen in this hell school. They’re red rimmed and teary now, a look that makes Akira tense, that fills the air in her lungs with the beginnings of bubbling anger. Nobody should look like that. Not in a _school._

Kamoshida’s office door closing behind her sounds like a knell of some sort.

Akira doesn’t move any further inside, keeps one hand on the cool doorknob. “You asked for me, sensei?” she says, not bothering to lift her voice or her eyes from any lower than knee-height. If she looks into his face she’s going to sneer. If she looks higher than his thighs she’s going to remember what the Shadow from this morning looked like and vomit all over his floor.

He doesn’t seem like he’s paying attention; there’s silence for a few long moments. When she begrudgingly lifts her head, he’s watching her, flat and expressionless and empty for a long moment that makes it all the more uncomfortable when the cheer floods his eyes like a flipped switch. “Why don’t you take a seat, Kurusu-chan?” he says, false joviality in his voice, motioning towards the chair a few feet from his own.

She wouldn’t have needed to hear Takamaki’s advice to see the alarm signs plastered all over this situation. “I’m okay here for now, thank you. You called for me?”

“Sit, Kurusu.” His voice cools a few degrees, and the danger bells blare all the louder. Morgana shifts in her bag; it grounds her, tethers her to know that she has a witness here.

Akira sits.

Prim and proper as her parents raised her, knees together, hands folded in her lap, bag tucked by her feet; she glances down and sees a yellow eye looking right back at her. Morgana can easily unzip the bag from the inside with the shove of a paw and a few quick movements. He wouldn’t be able to do much of anything as a cat. But he can watch, and he can assure her that she’s not just seeing things, sensing things that aren’t there.

Like Kamoshida’s gaze, heavy on her. He looks at her in a way men have looked at her before, even in her school blazer and regulation skirt and concealing black tights. There’s nothing untoward to see, but he looks anyway, and it makes her so angry she could puke.

Who gave him the right to treat her like an object displayed for him to ogle? Who gave him the _fucking right_ to make her sit here like a piece of meat?

When he speaks, it’s a calm, slow voice, all the more jarring paired with the look in his eyes. “I’ve heard you’ve been having a rough first few days, Kurusu. Some rumors getting shared about your...circumstances?”

She nods. “Nothing I can’t handle.” And it’s not, even though it sickens her to hear the hisses, makes something shrivel and wilt in her stomach and chest. She’s not a drug dealer. She’s not a yakuza playgirl. She’s never knifed anything that didn’t deserve it— never knifed anything that bled red, at least.

Kamoshida leans back in his chair, crossing one ankle over his knee. It’s a power stance; it opens up his shoulders and makes him more broad, makes him take up more space in the chair, in the room. Akira’s well versed in the linguistics of power displays. It’s hell, trying to hold back her sneer, trying to keep her fists from clenching. She smooths a non-existent wrinkle out of the fabric of her skirt and keeps her expression forcibly demure.

“Here at Shujin, we do our best to stamp out that sort of behavior,” he tells her with sincerity dripping from his voice like antifreeze, sweet and poisonous. “With the circumstances you’re coming in under, I feel like you could use a mentor figure. Have you ever played volleyball before?”

Oh, _god._

That— Akira honest to god blanks for a moment, everything in her going tight like a held breath, hot like a volcano. “No, sir,” she says on a forced exhale, unintentionally thin, wavery. Good. Let it sound like she’s nervous instead of furious, like she’s some thin waif instead of a weapon tensed and ready to show bare blade. Let it sound like she’s not prepared to bite his fucking hand again, just like she did hours earlier in the Metaverse. “Team sports were never my thing.”

“I think it would be good for you,” he says. She can’t look at his gross, oversized mouth, the way his tongue touches briefly on his bottom lip, the way his eyes fall to her knees making her want to yank her skirt down another inch. “I’m sure if I talked to your parents, they’d agree that a good after-school extracurricular would be just the sort of thing to keep you out of trouble. I’m willing to do some coaching on the side, as well. I don’t give this opportunity to just everyone, you know. I was a gold-medal Olympian, and my time is valuable, but I think you could become a useful team member.”

His words twist in the air; she can almost visualize the stink lines coming off the bullshit he’s spouting. In this moment, Akira hates this man more than anything she’s ever hated before, her fury blinding her, eclipsing rational thought.

Lucky for both of them that he speaks before she can. “Don’t let me keep you too long, Kurusu,” he says, and gives her a practiced, polished grin that holds no charm for her, now that she knows what’s behind it. “Have I made you late? Do you need a ride home?”

“I take the subway,” Akira chokes out as she stands up. “Yongen isn’t car friendly.”

“Suit yourself. Think about my offer, and I’ll get back to you in a few days.” He spins in his chair, dismissing her without a word.

Akira finds it commendable that she doesn’t punch the wall hard enough to break something as she leaves.

Kamoshida’s a shithead, and they have an opportunity to change that, and they _absolutely should._

 

* * *

 

 

They don’t go back to the Metaverse immediately.

Sakamoto asks once and then twice over the next two days; the third time, she stares at him so icily that he takes a step back, hands in the air like he means her no harm. Morgana hisses from her bag, but doesn’t comment, and Takamaki smacks him hard enough on the shoulder that he winces and promises to lay off.

Thing is, Akira would _love_ to go. The Metaverse is beautiful in its simplicity; anything that isn’t on her side is out to kill her, and she’s more than welcome to act as she sees fit. And she sees fit to rend and tear and stab until the things in front of her are in no fit state to ever try to hurt her again.

But the world outside the Metaverse is complex. Shujin is a step above her old school; the classes move faster, the material is more difficult, and she’s already starting at a disadvantage, getting expelled a few months before the end of the last school year. She’d done her best to keep up with what she should have, but...things happened.

She tries the library a few times, but the looks that the students give her, uneasy, wary, astounded that the delinquent transfer student can _read_ , that she _studies—_ did they think she spends all her time making fucking blood sacrifices in an alleyway or something?? The whispers get to her; after her third attempt, she slams her schoolbook shut, shoves it into her bag beside Morgana, and doesn’t return.

Studying in the attic isn’t great either; the worktable is dusty and the chair uncomfortable, but the couch is an even worse option, lumpy and spring-filled, so she ends up with papers spread all across the floor, digging her hands into her hair as Morgana lounges on the bed by her shoulder and tries to be helpful. (He’s not helpful. He’s also been almost caught once already; only quick thinking and an already-open window had kept him hidden from Sakura-san’s piercing gaze.)

English is fine. Japanese, sure. The sciences, workable. But math...the math that they do at Shujin makes no sense. The numbers swim disconcertingly in front of her until she has to take a break to scream into her pillow.

It doesn’t make her feel any better, and it doesn’t make the numbers start to make sense either. It’s a fruitless endeavor that ends with her sleepless and exhausted in the morning.

Kamoshida calls her into the office twice over the next two days. She never wears anything more revealing than her school outfit, but his eyes still wander over the slope of her shoulders and the length of her legs. He asks her questions about what she’s done in the past, about her gymnastics routines, about her dance schedules, all things she _knows_ he pulled from her file, and she answers as short and terse as she can, even as his chair inches closer and closer to her.

He doesn’t touch her. Hasn’t touched her. Not yet. She sees it in his eyes, though. She tastes it in the air like bitter cyanide. If he touches her, it’s game over for the both of them. He won’t be leaving the room without bite marks on his hand, and she’ll be heading to juvy.

The week doesn’t fly. It trudges, sticky-slow like heavy syrup, like dragging the pads of your fingers against sandpaper slowly and deliberately. When Kamoshida calls her into the office _again_ on Friday, she almost refuses.

But she has to play nice.

After she gets there, she wishes she hadn’t.

He’s bold today; maybe it’s the allure of the weekend, or maybe her non-responses are what gets him up, whatever, she doesn’t care, but he talks at her in a mash of words that go in one ear and out the other. Volleyball. Exercise routine. Stretches. Massage. Gold medal. Star athlete. Potential.

And then he stands up.

Crosses behind her.

_Puts his hands on her shoulders._

“You’re carrying a lot of tension, aren’t you?” he says, his fingers kneading into her blazer, and oh god help her she’s going to do it, she’s going to ruin everything, grab this chair and smash it into his face, scream until her lungs catch fire, because his thumb digs into her neck, just a few millimeters of fabric between it and skin, and she wants to whip her head around and bite it the fuck _off_ how dare he how _dare he how_ **_dare he how DARE HE—_ **

The door slams open.

Kamoshida jerks his head up, face twisting into a snarl as Sakamoto barges in, followed tentatively by Nishima, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “What the hell d’you think you’re doin’, Kamoshida?” Sakamoto barks, taking two aggressive steps forward. “Sittin’ in here touchin’ your fuckin’ students like that, you nasty perv—”

“I’ll have you shut your mouth, Sakamoto,” Kamoshida rumbles, his hands tightening on Akira’s shoulders, and she’s milliseconds from whipping her head to the side and just, _going_ for it when he lifts his hands. Her skin is crawling, every inch of her body feels infested, slimed, disgusting, _wrong_ , but she’s not one to sleep on an opportunity, and she staggers up, takes two steps forward to get between Sakamoto and Kamoshida. “What do you think you’re doing, coming into my office like this?”

“Comin’ to help my friend, what the hell else?” Sakamoto snaps aggressively. “Y’think I’d be in here lookin’ at you any more than I’d need be? Come on, Kurusu,” he says, abruptly turning his attention to Akira, “let’s get outta here ‘n—”

Kamoshida makes a noise like he’s just figured something out. “I see how it is, Kurusu. You could’ve just told me you’d already let Sakamoto have his way with you instead of leading me on like that.”

The words make her freeze midstep.

They ring in her skull, alarm bells, hurricane sirens, typhoon warnings, all heralding the rise of her gorge and the blinding pulses of anger stabbing into her brain. She’s speechless, motionless, struck dumb and mute at the insinuation.

It gives her a perfect view of Sakamoto’s face, gone pale and horrified. “The _hell_ do you mean by that?!” he says, barely a squeak. “We—”

“Don’t try to deny it.” Kamoshida flaps at them dismissively, already sitting back in his chair. “There are plenty of eye witnesses who’ve seen the two of you heading to the roof together over the past few days. You’re pretty easy, Kurusu, you barely waited, what, 24 hours before giving yourself up? Your standards are pretty low— Sakamoto, of all people?”

She can’t move. She can barely breathe over the vitriol burning through every millimeter of her veins. The touching, the accusations—

Sakamoto makes a garbled noise and takes a step forward, his fist raised to strike. It galvanizes her enough to move forward herself, her heel landing hard on his instep, and he swears and hops back, looking at her with betrayal. She glares right back, all of the disgusting feelings burning in her blood held in one white-hot gaze. If she hasn’t gotten to remove any fingers yet, Sakamoto doesn’t have _any right_ to try and draw blood first.

It’s not the wrong move, but it’s not the right move either, and still she faces the consequences for it. Kamoshida _tsks_ , a noise of disgust, and turns to face his computer again. “Should’ve known you’d just be another one of those backwoods country sluts,” he mutters, his expression a disdainful mask. “Sakamoto, you’re going to be expelled for raising a hand to me again.”

Sakamoto makes a noise of outraged dismay, only for Kamoshida to continue talking over him. “That is, if you don’t convince your little delinquent toy to stay in my office after school this afternoon.”

Akira sees white.

Not red, no; she’s too far gone for red. The white is hot and furious, the sound of blood and flames in her ears, in her eyes, and whatever else is said in that room she doesn’t parse it, can’t breathe can’t see, can barely think around the fear and the fury and the high, tight feeling in her throat—

She barely makes it to the bathroom before what little lunch she managed to eat comes right back up.

The aftermath doesn’t feel any cleaner, doesn’t feel any better. She just feels empty and wrecked, bile coating her mouth and lips, unspent adrenaline making her shake. She’d thought she’d reached as low as she could go the night of the...incident, with the side of her face raw and bleeding and her mother’s cold, disgusted gaze weighing her down like bricks, but this— the blatant insinuations, the implications, the _touching._

Her phone vibrates once, then twice. She doesn’t have the energy to get up off the floor, just slaps at her pocket until it falls out enough for her to grab it. An unknown number? Sakamoto, who’d insisted that the three of them exchange numbers after that morning in the Metaverse? She almost ignores it, but…

**> from: [unknown sender]** ****  
_kurusu can you come out_   
_gotta say somethin n its better in person_   
  
Akira can’t live in this goddamn bathroom forever. The shakes are almost gone, anyway, down to a fine tremor in her fingertips. She splashes her face and rinses her mouth off, trying to ignore her red-rimmed eyes, the dark circles beneath. There’s the faintest tang of iron in her mouth; she rolls her lower lip out just a bit to examine it, and finds that she’s bitten it sometimes in the past few minutes. It hurts, in a faraway sort of way. Something easily ignorable, and something she does ignore as she shakes herself back into order, gathering the tatters of her composure one shred at a time.

She shouldn’t have bothered.

Sakamoto leans against the wall next to the bathrooms, shoulders hunched, stiff and clearly uncomfortable as he stares at his phone. Akira doesn’t approach too closely, Kamoshida’s words still hanging over her like a miasma. Hanging over him too, it looks like; he won’t meet her eyes, and his grip tightens until his knuckles stand out white and stark against his skin. “You know that was bullshit,” he almost asks more than says, low, angry. “You ‘n I— I wouldn’t — I wouldn’t _ever_ , you don’t even _know_ me, ‘n I don’t even know _you,_ Kamoshida’s such a piece of _shit—_ he had his hands on you,” he blurts, like a revelation, an awful realization, and the way he says it makes the bile bubble back into her throat. “He— Kurusu. Did he— I’ll, I’ll fuckin—”

“Not before I do.” It comes out rough and raw, her hands balled into fists, soaked in furious misery. “Did— my bag, I have Morgana—”

“I’m right here, Akira, don’t worry.” Morgana’s voice comes from down by Ryuji’s feet, his little black head poking out of her schoolbag. Sakamoto must have grabbed it for her. She’ll have to thank him later. “You two...you have a time limit now. He said he was going to expel Ryuji?” Sakamoto makes a rough grumble. “You can fix it, you know. If you change his heart.”

There’s a long moment of silence, a moment of tension in the air between them, uncomfortable like a plucked string edged with glass.

Then Akira squares her shoulders and crosses the distance between them just enough to scoop up her bag, and Morgana with it. “Meet me on the roof,” she says, her mouth already curled into a snarl, furysong shrill in her ears and her heart. “I’m not going to wait very long.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sakamoto takes longer than she’d expected. Akira has her phone out, flicking back and forth between app screens, pausing and hovering over the Metaverse icon each time; the only thing that stops her from pressing it is knowing that Sakamoto’s backup was all that kept her from— dying? Can she actually die in the cognitive world?

Morgana says she can. She’s inclined to believe him. It may be a weird place full of weird magic, but the memory of her nose aching, blood spattered across her face, is all too real.

She’s got the app open and hovering over the “calculate route” button when the door slams open and Sakamoto dashes out, followed closely by Takamaki. “Kurusu-chan, Ryuji told me what happened,” she says, breathless and furious, face pale with anger. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

Akira shakes her head.

“Good,” Takamaki says, and then again, quieter but no less fiercely, “ _good._ I want you to take me with you again. If I can’t get back at him for all the stuff he’s put the volleyball team through, all the stuff he’s put _Shiho_ through— I can tell you about that later,” she adds as Akira’s expression twists into impatience. “But I won’t get in your way, I promise.”

“I’ll keep you safe, Lady Ann!” Morgana promises from the desk where he sits.

“Fantastic.” And Akira jabs her finger down. “We’re going now.”

 

* * *

 

 

They don’t make anywhere near as much progress as Akira wants; some of that, she knows, is her own fault. She doesn’t have the patience she needs to linger around corners, to hide in the shadows of bookcases and furniture, and every time she springs before she thinks she feels the air get tight and hot, feels the tension ratchet up another few inches until the entire world is quivering with it, until she sees red at the corner of her eyes everywhere she looks and the Shadows converge on her the instant she steps into a new room.

It doesn’t help that she keeps getting lost in the twists and turns of the castle, fraying her already thin patience further; it doesn’t help that every time a Shadow lands a hit on her, claws or hooves or fangs bruising her, bloodying her, it spikes her anger higher, turning frustration to blind fury, and by the time Mona points out a safe room door she’s shaking with exhaustion, black blood and ichor dripping from her dagger, red blood and bruises painted across what little skin she has exposed.

She chugs half of the water bottle that Takamaki hands her, swishing and spitting into the corner of the room before wetting a corner of her coat tail and using it to wipe her face. Across the room Sakamoto does the same with his bright red scarf.. Morgana sits on the table between the three of them, scowling, and even though he’s less than two feet tall and a _monster cat_ she feels like she’s getting a parental scolding.

“We need to pull back for today,” he says, raising a paw over Akira’s immediate wordless protest. “You’re running low on stamina, and we don’t have anything to replenish it. Plus, you’ve raised the palace security level high enough that it’ll be almost impossible to proceed any further.”

She can’t argue about that, not with the evidence splattered across her face and chest, printed along Sakamoto’s skin. It still feels like failure when she bows her head and acquiesces, letting Mona crush one of his funny little go-home gems between his paws to send the three of them back to the entrance unharmed.

Sakamoto tries to catch her eye as soon as they coalesce back onto the school roof, but Akira turns her head and heads for the stairs as quickly as she can walk, barely sparing enough time to sling her schoolbag off her shoulder and open it up for Morgana to jump into. Behind her, she hears Takamaki say something about having a bunch of missed calls. It’s not interesting enough to make her linger.

The fighting was enough to take away most of her energy, which leaves her exhausted on her bed, Morgana tucked into the curve of her body, staring into the darkness of the attic.

Even with the exhaustion, she barely sleeps.

 

* * *

 

 

Saturday morning, after the first set of classes, a girl jumps from the roof.

It’s the girl Akira bumped into earlier in the week, a girl she’s heard Takamaki speak of fondly— Suzui Shiho, with the dark hair and even darker eyes, with bruises on her forearms and her cheek and a haunted look that made Akira want to lash out at whoever put it there. She survives, but she’s in critical condition, and Takamaki rides to the hospital with her, blotchy-faced and sobbing.

It hits Akira _hard._

She’d overheard some of what Suzui had gritted out, just enough to make the connections. Volleyball. Bruises. Kamoshida. The hunted look, the flinch, the _sympathy_ when Akira had passed her on the way to Kamoshida’s office. She’s barely been in Shujin a week, but it still feels like a personal failure, leaves her unsettled and jittery all day.

Saturday afternoon, Takamaki meets her by the stairway at the front of the school. Her eyes are red, her lips pressed together in a thin line, and she tells Akira in no uncertain terms that she’s going into the Metaverse again with her and Sakamoto and Morgana.

Akira agrees immediately, overriding Sakamoto’s uneasy protest. If it had been her best friend, her closest confidant, she would’ve needed to do something too. Akira understands completely. She only wishes she had a weapon for Ann to hold, something that she could make herself useful with rather than making her stay back holding their bags.

It turns out she doesn’t need to.

When they come across Shadow Kamoshida again, he has unwelcome company. He sits on a garish throne of gold and velvet, easily wide enough for two. On his left lounges a cognitive copy of Takamaki, baring more skin than Akira can easily comprehend; on his right kneels a double of Akira herself, looking slavishly up at Kamoshida’s face with an expression Akira herself is positive she’s never made in her entire fucking life.

The only reason she doesn’t hurl a dagger through Kamoshida’s face right then and there is because Takamaki beats her to it.

Saturday evening, Takamaki burns in her own ashes and rises anew, clad in a suit red as fresh blood, lashing out with a clawed whip to leave slashes across King Speedo’s disgusting face, sending him reeling back with a howl, bright gold blood pouring out from the fingers he has slapped over his wounds. He runs before they can do anything else; Akira, at least, has the satisfaction of slashing the throat of her own cognitive double, while Takamaki liberates a sword from one of the nearby guard-Shadows and proceeds to do the same.

It’s strangely cathartic. Akira stands, shaking the golden blood from hands and daggers, and meets Takamaki’s eyes. Takamaki nods right back, eyes dark, whip coiled. She’s intimidatingly fierce, and it’s…

_Nice._

Good to have that buffer between herself and Sakamoto, who apparently can’t keep his tongue in his mouth. Takamaki smacks him a good one in the stomach when he looks a little too long; behind their backs Akira cracks the first smile she’s made in...a long time.

It’s not much longer after that until Takamaki succumbs to what Akira privately calls “awakening exhaustion”. She staggers on those oversized heels of hers back to the nearest safe room, and even on the roof she can’t hold back her yawns, the slump in her shoulders. Quietly, Akira recommends that she get something to eat before she rests.

It’s a shock when Takamaki asks her to come _with._

They end up in a little diner in Shibuya. Takamaki orders some massive crepe concoction that Akira doesn’t even bat an eye at; she’s a growing girl who’s had a traumatic day (and honestly with a figure like that Takamaki can _afford_ a couple massive crepes). She frowns heavily when Akira orders nothing but ice water, and shoves the plate in between them pointedly.

It’s a sweet gesture, made sweeter by the taste of fresh fruit and whipped cream. Akira hasn’t had anything like it in months, between the house arrest and the flat of dry ramen she thinks about with distaste. Between the two of them (Takamaki taking massive forkfuls, intent and hungry, while Akira picks around the edges and leaves the lion’s share to her) they demolish it within ten minutes.

Takamaki orders _another one._

“I’ve always been a stress eater,” she admits like it’s something to be ashamed of. “Back when we were kids, Shiho would always give me her pretzels if I was having a bad day. She was— she’s been my closest friend for years. This isn’t—” She lays her fork down, as if her appetite is suddenly gone, and scrubs her hands across her eyes. “This isn’t _fair._ This shouldn’t have happened to anyone, but _especially_ not Shiho. She’s never done anything wrong to _anyone._ And that— that colossal _prick_ , he just— ruins everything he touches—”

“How is she?” Akira interjects, soft and gentle, glancing around nervously at the looks they’re getting. “She was still—”

“Alive,” Takamaki nods, “yeah. They— they said they weren’t sure when she was gonna wake up, but— Shiho’s strong. She’s the strongest girl I know. There’s no way she _won’t._ ”

“Yeah.”

“Kurusu...we’re gonna avenge her, right?”

Akira nods. “Of course we are. Her and—” Is it too forward? Is it too much? “A-and ourselves.” Takamaki’s eyes sharpen at her words, fixate hard on her face, on the way she sits, curled in on herself, tucked as far into the corner of the booth as she can. It’s like she can read the tracks of Kamoshida’s hands on her shoulders, can hear the words he spoke, can see even past that to the older tracks of her history. Maybe she can.

Whatever goes on behind those blue eyes stays there. Takamaki opens her mouth, then closes it; after a moment she stretches her arm across the table, her hand hesitating over Akira’s own. Offering. “Can I call you Akira?” she says, softly, like she doesn’t want to startle her. “I think we’re going to be good friends.”

Abruptly, Akira’s close to tears.

Something unfolds in her chest, unfurls like an opened lock; somehow, she can feel a tie stretching between the two of them as she hesitantly nods, and Takamaki’s fingertips land on the back of her hand. It’s...it’s a nice touch. Akira hasn’t felt a nice touch in a very long time.

“Call me Ann, then,” Takamaki— _Ann—_ says, and smiles, her own eyes a little teary. “Can we go back into the Palace tomorrow? I don’t— I don’t want to _wait_ if we don’t have to.”

Akira agrees tenfold. “He’s already threatened to get Sakamoto and I expelled. The sooner we can change his heart—” and goddamn, if that isn’t something weird to say out loud, “the better it will be for all of us.” Ann nods.

When the second plate of crepes comes over, Ann shoves it between them again, her smile less watery, brighter. Akira tucks in with only a moment’s hesitation, and thinks that she maybe hasn’t _ever_ had something that tastes so sweet.

When she closes her eyes that night, she’s catapulted into the prison, the blue space, the Velvet Room, her child-like captors glaring at her with veiled malice, with distaste. The man at the desk in the center of the room is no man at all, this much is clear from the few times she’s been here before, but his deep and eerie voice still activates her fight or flight reflex, adrenaline singing uselessly through her veins.

He shows her a tarot card plucked from a spread, colorless but for one streak of bright red. The lovers. It resonates with the tie she felt earlier, unlocked, opened to her. A confidant. More power for Igor’s game. More power for her “rehabilitation.”

She’ll take whatever goddamn power she can get. The odds are stacked enough against her as it is.

 

* * *

 

 

They meet in front of the school early Sunday morning, loaded with bandaids and cans of Manta and Second Maid, with some of the medicines that Morgana had tucked into her pocket during their second run into the palace. If all goes well, they won’t be coming out until their infiltration route is secured, leaving them only the actual treasure to steal on Monday.

It’s both more and less difficult than Akira had expected.

With the addition of Ann to their team, she has one less thing to worry about, one less thing to protect. Panther has claws and can hold her own against the Shadows, and her persona must give her the same innate knowledge that Akira’s gave her, and Skull’s gave him; even with her lurid red suit, she manages to blend into the spaces they need to hide just as easily as the rest of them.

They ascend. They fight. They find a library, and solve a puzzle, and find something even more disturbing, a shrine to Suzui-san that makes Panther hiss and tighten her grip on her whip until leather creaks beneath her fingers. They fight some more. They hide, and they sneak, and by the time a Shadow sees them they’re already well out of reach. Akira scrambles up the side of a ledge, weightless and giddy and free, dashing up the tower like she’s made of smoke and shadows, the sky around her throbbing in unnatural shades of red and purple and blue.

It’s beautiful madness. She’s never felt so alive.

The world warps more and more the higher they climb. Walls shift and waver, floors rise and fall. Akira misses a jump and lands flat on her back, the breath stunned out of her momentarily, keeping just enough of her wits about her to twist and hide behind the shadow of a pillar as a monstrous Shadow walks past, heavily armored and masked. It turns its back to her after a moment.

Something calls to her, an urge, a wild impulse, and she gives into it, flings herself forward and up, rips its mask off and digs her dagger into its neck before she can react, over and over and over and _over_ again, until her arms and chest and face are spattered with black ichor and the Shadow dissolves beneath her into ash and sludge.

When she catches her breath and straightens, the other three are staring at her. Mona with unfiltered pride, Panther with shock and awe, and Skull… is it admiration or fear? Whatever it is, she locks eyes with him as she wipes her dagger clean on one flap of her coat, and feels an echo of whatever she felt with Takama— with _Ann_ yesterday afternoon. Could he be another, what was it, confidant?

The way he stares at her...there’s nothing predatory about it. It’s not like Kamoshida’s, or any other countless looks she’s received. There’s no hint of implied possession, no sense that he’s got anything untoward on his mind. He ducks his head when her eyes narrow a hair, a hand raising to scratch at the back of his neck, and he even turns a half-step away in deference when she moves forward. Submissive. Because she just slaughtered a Shadow in front of him? Or because she’s their unofficial leader, appointed by Mona, keeping the position only because she wants to be the one to control their pace, to barrel through exactly as fast as she wants?

It’s a puzzle she has no time to focus on. They still have stairs to climb, and Shadows to fight, and traps to dodge, and puzzles to solve, until finally, _finally,_ they stand in front of a nebulously glowing orb that Mona promises will materialize into something appropriately steal-able.

But it won’t appear until tomorrow, not until they deliver a calling card, and when they re-materialize in front of the school Akira feels her frustration spiking higher and higher, disproportional to her exhaustion, to the painful ache in her stomach that reminds her that she’s had nothing but sugary carbonated drinks since the crepes she shared with Ann last night.

Going from such wild abandon to being stuck in her own skin again is a whiplash that sours her mood even further. Sakura-san’s judgemental gaze twists her into knots inside, makes her skulk through the cafe like she has something to be guilty about, like her entire _existence_ is something to be guilty about, like he knows what she’s doing and finds her lacking, like she’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a probation officer downstairs ready to take her away, back to blank walls and disgusting food and cruel expressions and hands—

She doesn’t realize she’s curled herself  up in the corner of the room beside the couch until Morgana swats her hard enough to sting, claws barely sheathed. It doesn’t help to calm her down any, but it does bring her a little further back into her own skin.

It’s too late to stop. The train’s already in motion— shit, the train’s already _derailed,_ off the tracks and throwing twisted metal and showers of sparks everywhere, and Akira’s still at the helm fighting to keep it pointed where she wants it to be for as long as she can manage. The expulsion order will go through if she doesn’t do anything, and that means more lives will be ruined than just her own. It’s not something she wanted to care about. It’s something she has to, now.

Ever so delicately, Morgana steps into her lap, his paws four soft points of pressure that she focuses on, trying to get her too-fast breathing back under her control. He hesitates, then stretches upward, his forepaws landing on her shoulder, his head butting under her chin like the cat he appears to be. “Are you afraid?” he asks softly, and makes an unsurprised noise when she shrugs, ambivalent. “You’re strong, you know. The strongest persona-user I’ve ever seen. Nobody else can handle more than one— you’ve already got three or four. And you’re coming along in the ‘phantom’ part of ‘phantom thievery’, too.”

“Are we doing the right thing?” Akira asks in barely more than a whisper as she drags her fingers down Morgana’s back. His tail jerks upright like a flag, back arching, and guilt sits heavy at the back of her throat for a hot moment before he arches into the touch, a low, warm thrum starting low in his chest. “I know we have to. There isn’t a choice anymore.”

“There’s always a choice,” Morgana says reprovingly through his purr. “You can choose to stop, but you’ll face the consequences. Ryuji will be expelled. You will be, too. Kamoshida will be free to do whatever he wants to the rest of the student body, for as long as he chooses. Or…” With a push and a little hop, he drapes himself across Akira’s shoulders, a warm solid weight that bows her forward until she has to prop her elbows on her knees. “Or you steal his treasure and change his heart. Make him repent. Make him pay for his crimes.”

“That easy, huh?” Akira asks, and laces her fingers together to try and hide the way they tremble. “Just go storming in and be big goddamn heroes?”

“That easy,” Morgana says.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not that easy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning spoilers: kamoshida touches akira non-sexually but with intent, and calls her a few slurs when she doesn't respond appropriately to his advances


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The anticipation is destroying her from the inside out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: mentions of disordered eating, panic attacks, kamoshida

Monday morning, Akira can’t eat a single thing.

She knows she should— she’s going to need all the energy she can get as they retrace their infiltration path this afternoon. If everything’s been done like they planned, Sakamoto will have plastered the calling card up where Kamoshida’s sure to see it. All they’ll need to do is wait until he sees it, make their way through the day, and hop into the Metaverse.

But the tension and the burning in her stomach closes her throat and dries her mouth until just the thought of food, just the whiffs of the curry Sakura-san already has on the stove when she slips down from the attic and out the door, make her want to hurl.

Everything is riding on this.  _ Everything. _

It’ll be fine. It  _ will. _

(Nothing is ever easy anymore in Akira’s fucking life. Just  _ thinking _ it is grounds for trouble.)

 

 

Delivering the calling card goes off without a hitch. Sakamoto, somehow, already has them tacked to every available bulletin board; they’ve  garnered more attention than necessary by the time Akira walks through the doors, and he joins her and Ann a few meters back in the hallway, watching the chaos, listening to the whispers.

They don’t speak. What is there to say? The time for words is long past. It’s only action now, action here, action later. Akira’s fingers tighten on the strap of her bag. Sakamoto shifts restlessly, an echo of the way he’s always moving in the Metaverse. Between them, Ann twists the ends of one of her ponytails between her fingers, frets and frets at it.

Then Kamoshida storms through, scattering students left and right like a flock of startled birds.

His anger is palpable in the air, enough so that for a moment Akira swears she can feel an echo in the cognitive world, a pulse, a tension that carries through into reality. From the way Morgana hisses so very quietly in her bag, she thinks she’s not the only one.

Morgana told them that delivering the calling card would set the palace ruler on high alert. The tension is a familiar one— like she hasn’t been feeling this every goddamn second of every goddamn day already? It spooks Skull and Panther once they get into the Metaverse, makes them flinch and shy from shifts in the landscape, and she has to bite down on her tongue when Skull jumps as a Shadow passes by, catching its attention and forcing them into an unnecessary battle. 

He’s sheepish, but she doesn’t care. They’re here for one thing and one thing only.

And, of course, getting the treasure can’t be that easy either.

The true form of Kamoshida’s Shadow is like nothing they’ve ever seen. It’s massive, hulking, hideous and misshapen, yet somehow...doll-like. Neuter. It’s unclothed, sprawled across the backside of the room. Cognitive versions of Ann, of Akira, of several of the female volleyball members splay around him adoringly, worshipfully. He spears them into his mouth one by one, chews them up and spits them out, draws power from them and leaves them empty husks on the floor.

Her attacks hit hard, but Kamoshida hits harder; he stabs his golden trident right through her thigh when she doesn’t dodge fast enough, her scream petering off into a sob when Morgana dashes in, paws bright with green light, giving her enough of a heal for her to roll out of the way of the next attack. He backhands Skull hard enough into a pillar that it takes him five or six moments to move, five or six moments that Akira thought he’d broken his neck and  _ died.  _ He wraps his lecherous tongue around Ann and paralyzes her, saliva dripping from her leather suit, breathless and disgusted and so horrified she shakes.

They don’t get  _ anywhere. _

Any time one of them lays a hit on him, he drinks from the golden chalice set between his legs, coming up with froth on his lip and a grin that sets his bulbous eyes rolling even faster in his head. It’s a disgusting, nauseating sight, and when Akira staggers and misses again, gets tossed across the room and lands so hard she sees stars, Morgana calls for a moment’s retreat.

For all its strength, Kamoshida’s shadow can’t move from its seat at the end of the hall. Panther gets her shoulder under Akira’s arm and helps her hobble out of the way of another volley of volleyballs, a salvo that leaves the floor pitted and cracked where they once stood. He can’t reach them in the tiny nook beneath the stairs; they take a moment to catch their breath, trying to block out the sour howl of the Shadow’s voice.

Skull’s the first to speak. “This is  _ bullshit, _ ” he snarls, gulping down his can of Second Maid as fast as he can; Morgana presses another can into his palm when it’s empty, and he tosses the first one out as hard as he can. It bounces twice and gets obliterated by another volleyball. “Mona, how the fu— “ He coughs. “How the eff ‘re we supposed to go up against that thing if it keeps healing?!” 

“I don’t know!” Mona snaps back, his own can crumpling under the force of his grip. “This is the first time I’ve done this, too! But I know that if we  _ can _ defeat it, you can take the treasure and steal the heart, you just have to—” 

Panther, who’s been laying bandages across Akira’s scraped cheek, freezes. “The treasure,” she says, gently pressing the adhesive down. “The crown. He was so mad that we had it… what if we took it again?” 

“How?” Skull says. “It’s all the way on top of his goddamn head, An—”

“ _ Panther.” _

“Panther, shit, my point stands! How’re we gonna—”

Akira hisses as Panther presses down a little too hard, the pain adding to her frustration, her fury. She knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but this?! This is  _ fucking ridiculous _ , verging on impossible; that nightmare at the end of the room is going to  _ kill them all _ if Akira can’t figure out a fucking solution to this fucking problem and as tempting as it is sometimes there’s no  _ fucking _ way she’s going to let that asshole teacher off the hook for  _ laying hands on her, _ on Ann, on every member of the volleyball team, on who  _ knows _ how many other people.

Think.

_ Think. _

Her eyes travel across as much of the room as she can see; it’s wide, open space, high-roofed, few pillars to hide behind. The stairs that led up to the treasure room are an option, but anyone who ran for them would be exposed and vulnerable, and the Shadow would have ample opportunity to take them down. The only thing up there anyway is the chandelier, and— 

Huh. It’s a big chandelier, easily big enough to support her weight. If she can just...

There’s one of those gross headless volleyball busts to their left, full of easy handholds. It’s right underneath the chandelier, too, barely any farther than some of the jumps she’d had to make in any gymnastics practice. But it’s so close to Kamoshida’s Shadow...

It makes her feel disgusting even thinking about it, but sometimes the Shadow hesitates a beat too long, lets its eyes linger on Panther, on the heart-shaped neckline and the blood-bright catsuit. If she gets Panther all the way to the right, makes sure Mona and Skull can provide her the support she needs while Akira climbs her way up...

“I can get up to the chandelier,” Akira blurts around the rim of her can, forcing the words out before she can think her way back out of it.

No.

She’s Joker here. She’s competent, not cowardly; strong and brave, not someone who’s going to spend the evening hiding in this alcove. The taste of the Manta lingers strong and artificial on her tongue, but she finishes the can anyway, grimacing at the sticky-sweet taste. “I’ll get up on the ledge,” she says again, more firmly. “I can jump from there to the chandelier, and from there I can dropkick that crown right off his stupid head.” 

She sketches out the bare outlines of her plans, of what she’d need from the rest of them to pull it off; 

The other three look at her long enough that she starts to bristle. “What?!” 

“It’s a good plan,” Mona says thoughtfully, “but it’s risky. What if it goes wrong again?”

“We don’t have time for what-ifs,” Joker shakes her head. “We’re already exhausted and hurting. If we let this go on any longer than we absolutely need to, he’s going to hurt us. Bad. Worse than he’s already done. Maybe in ways we won’t be able to fix. So I’m gonna get on that fucking ledge and knock that fucking crown off his disgusting gremlin face, and you three keep distracting him.” 

“Sounds great,” Skull says. The look in his eyes is unreadable; she has no clue how to quantify it, but the immediate, unwavering support sends heat down her spine like strength, like lightning. His fingers crackle, sparks jumping between his knuckles; the air around Panther shimmers like heat-haze.

Inside of her, Arsene stirs and stretches his wings, Pixie giggling maniacally from the sidelines. Agathion stirs but briefly; she lets him rest. He’ll be getting a workout soon, after all.

And for once...something goes  _ right. _

Shadow Kamoshida notices she’s gone, as she expected. “Just like a little delinquent bitch to run and hide and send her friends in her stead,” he howls as Akira climbs her way up hand-over-hand to the ledge. Panther hits him in the eye with a luckier-than-usual spray from her tommy gun and he whips his head around, his tongue lashing out like a whip. She dodges quite prettily, whipping him back, and she doesn’t miss. Three long golden lines open up along the skin of his tongue like rivers of gold.

It enrages him enough that he tries to scoot forward and reach them, the bulk of his upper body an impossible challenge the stunted lower half is unable to respond to. He doesn’t move.

The crown on top of his head does, almost slipping. Two of the shadow’s four hands immediately go to grab it, snuffling in a wet, panicked sort of way. “Die! Die already!” it screams, but its grip is weak, and Joker is attuned to that weakness like a shark scenting blood.

She takes a breath, then another to steady her nerves.

Then she leaps.

This time she knows how to compensate for the grip of the gloves, knows how to hold tight and turn the slip into a controlled slide, to control her momentum and curve just right; to fling herself upward into the air and land neat and tidy on the edge of the chandelier, the crown a perfect target beneath her. 

But something stirs inside her as she prepares to jump.

Something makes her pause, some little bit of intuition, an idea discarded and snatched up in the same breath. The chandelier is enough to support her weight, but barely, and it groans when she moves. It’s positioned directly above Shadow Kamoshida, wide enough to encompass his head and shoulders.

The support chain groans again. Joker licks her lips and bares her teeth in a wide, panicked grin, and summons Arsene.

The curse damage from her attack travels up the chain, darkening and rusting the metal. Huge flakes crack off, scattering across her shoulders like dirty snow. She barely gets back to the rim of the chandelier, holding on for dear life, when the chain snaps with a sound like a broken bone and plummets.

It slams directly into Shadow Kamoshida’s head, sending both Joker and the crown flying.

When it slips from the Shadow’s head he  _ screams,  _ a broken cry like an animal; Joker lands right in the golden goblet, knocking it over and spilling her out of it to roll across the floor, spitting liquid out of her mouth as she goes. It cracks when it hits the ground, shatters into tiny shards, wine red as blood flooding the carpet like arterial spray, like a corpse bleeding out. Skull whoops behind her; she hears his gun go off, hears Panther’s follow it short and sharp, and when she rolls to her feet she sees that Shadow Kamoshida is  _ downed. _

“Now!” She yells, and flips her dagger point-down in her grasp.

It’s not something they’ve done too often. With Mona and Skull once, before Ann had her persona, when the flow of battle wrapped tight around her and caught her up in the intimacy, in the moment; there’s something about the Metaverse that makes it easy to let go of her inhibitions and slip into the hivemind that lets what Morgana calls an ‘all out attack’ happen.

She didn’t like it that first time, even with the satisfaction of obliterating a stronger enemy into nothing but dust; she didn’t like the feel of Skull or Mona in her hindbrain. 

Maybe it’s having another girl on the team, someone she’s already formed some sort of bond with, but this time when the battle-song swings wide and sweeps her up she doesn’t fight it. She feels Skull bright-hot at her right, Panther crackling like an inferno to her left, Mona behind, flanking wide, weapons drawn. There’s no need for speech, nor for conscious thought. All there is, is  _ doing. _

Mona’s sword carves ragged golden furrows over Shadow Kamoshida’s arms, his legs. Skull’s spiked club hits flesh with dull, meaty thuds and accompanying shrieks. Panther’s whip cracks as it lashes out, again, again, again.

But Joker climbs him like a tree, foothold, handhold, knifehold, buries her dagger beneath his chin and yanks down with both hands.

There’s a shriek, rising up and up into ranges that shouldn’t be audible as she tears downward, a noise that grates at her ears and her subconscious hard enough that she drops to an inelegant crouch at the dying Shadow’s feet, stained with red and gold. It shrivels and withers until it’s back into its human form, pale and terrified, that disgusting pink speedo on full display as Shadow Kamoshida scrambles up and lunges for the crown, searching every which way for an escape he can’t find.

A hand on her elbow makes her look up sharply, but it’s only Panther coaxing her to stand, mask off, Carmen shimmering into reality behind her with flames in both outstretched palms. “Where are you running to, Kamoshida?” she spits heatedly. “Are you going to go ahead and take the same way out that Shiho did? Look down. Are you as scared as she was?”

“You’re all a bunch of goddamn hyenas!” Shadow Kamoshida snarls back, crouching over his treasure like an animal. “I did nothing wrong! Everyone else— everyone was just trying to work off my success! Why shouldn't I have the right to take payment?!”

“You don’t have the right to do anything in this world except live,” Joker says, her dagger still prominently in her hand. “And that right ended when you started forcing yourself onto other people.”

It fills her with an odd sort of apathy, watching the Shadow snivel and cower. Such a strong opponent knocked down to this mewling shitbag— she takes a step forward, two, three, until she’s right in front of him, the heel of her boot hitting his shoulder, knocking him sideways; he lets go of the crown with a cry and she kicks it, hears it scrape across the floor, feels more than sees Panther reach down and grab it.

“What do you wanna do with him, Joker?” Mona asks from behind her, his voice neutral. “You won. It’s your right to decide what to do with him.” 

Oh, she could do  _ so much. _ Use her magic on him, watch his flesh crumble, carve him into mincemeat, kick him in the face and watch that golden blood spill everywhere, string him up with Panther’s whip and use him like a pinata, and her breath gets short, the possibilities endless, the fear in Shadow Kamoshida’s eyes filling her with disgusted fury.

“Skull,” she says shortly, “Panther. You have more claim to him than I do. What’s your call?” 

As one, they move up to flank her, Skull’s yellow gloves fisted, Panther’s pink ones rippling with uncalled fire. He touched her, made her feel awful and wrong and horrified, but he’s done so much to her teammates. She doesn’t have the right to decide his fate.

The tang of ozone fills her nose, Captain Kidd shimmering into existence behind them, next to Carmen. In front of them, Shadow Kamoshida whimpers, leaning over to touch his forehead to the floor.

“You’ve defeated me,” he says, almost a sob. “I’ve lost. You’re finished when you lose...everything’s over anyway.” 

Panther makes an aborted snarl, jerking forward as if she wants to show him the meaning of loss. “What do you want to do?” Joker asks, softer now. “Do you want to kill him?”

Before Skull can answer, two fireballs shoot out from Carmen’s hand, barely missing Shadow Kamoshida to either side. “No,” Panther says, letting her mask materialize back onto her face. “Let him go back to his real self. Let him suffer the consequences of what he’s done. There’re fates worse than death, after all.”

She turns; after a moment Skull follows. Mona hesitates by her leg, looking up at her with his wide blue eyes. “C’mon, Joker. This whole place is gonna come down soon, we’ve gotta get back to the entrance.”

“It’s that easy, huh,” Joker says.

Then she turns her back on the snivelling shadow and follows her teammates out of the hall, their prize kept tightly secured.

 

Kamoshida doesn’t set foot in the school for the next two weeks. Whispered rumors echo in every corner, each less likely than the last— he got tapped for the Olympics again and is in super secret extreme training, or he got caught using steroids on the job and is in some sort of detox program. The quieter whispers are the ones that talk about the calling card, about  _ what if it’s true, what if the police caught him and arrested him for—  _

Akira doesn’t listen. She can’t, or the stress will make her vibrate right out of her skin.

The treasure materialized as a gold medal, of all things; it’s currently tucked in a paper bag under Akira’s milk-crate mattress frame awaiting a good time to pawn it off. Or for her to unceremoniously get kicked out, since Kamoshida has all but vanished off the face of the earth and, as far as she knows, Ryuji’s still getting expelled on the 2nd, and,  _ fuck,  _ she probably is too.

As the days pass by her nerves wind her tighter and tighter, leave her queasy, tossing and turning at night and so hazy in the mornings she can barely get her buttons into the correct holes. Ann makes tentative overtures of friendship, invites her out to crepes again, to the underground mall for some window-shopping, and she goes once, but she’s poor company and she knows it. Ann is so gracious about it, more than she really should be, and guilt joins the mess of anxiety that roils through her.

Sakamoto reaches out too, but she dodges his attempts at some one-on-one time by the easy way of ignoring his text messages. What’s the use of getting all buddy-buddy if she’s going to be kicked out of Shujin in the upcoming weeks anyway? What’s the use of anything? 

One by one, the cups of dry ramen on her shelf accumulate in half-eaten clusters until all she can taste in her mouth is cheap noodles and the faint tang of iron from where she’s bitten her cheek raw. After a while, she doesn’t even bother with them.

The anticipation is destroying her from the inside out.

She can’t sleep. She can’t focus. Her emotions are a mess, her reflexes shot; Sakamoto reaches out to pull a bit of cat hair off her sleeve and she nearly socks him in the face, but he dodges easily and doesn’t take any offense. Who the fuck is he— who the fuck are either of them, to take her poor mood and worse social graces so smoothly, so easily? What’s wrong with them?

What’s wrong with  _ her? _

  
  


The night before the deadline is a new low.

Both Ann and Sakamoto have texted her, Sakamoto multiple times, but she’s so exhausted that every limb feels like it weighs a thousand kilos, every beat of her heart sending a stabbing pulse into her temples. She needs to drink something, to eat something, but her water bottle ran dry sometime last night and when she went downstairs to use the bathroom this morning Sakura-san fixed her with such a look that she fled right back upstairs without filling it up in the sink like she usually does.

Morgana tries to get her up, to get her moving, but she’s paralyzed with panicked fear, trapped by the anxiety churning through every cell. She can’t— she can’t stop shaking, lacing her fingers together until her knuckles turn white, her socked feet jittering against the rough floor of the attic, the burn in her gut overwhelming every sense until it’s all she is. 

She’s had panic attacks before, ever since— since  _ then, _ but they’ve been few and far between, and never as drawn out as this. She tries everything, breathing exercises, in-out-in-out-in-in-in-hold-out but it whooshes out far faster than she wants, and when she sucks back in her control is so shaky, her eyes watering even as she tries to fight it back because this is  _ ridiculous—  _

Ridiculous or not, she can’t keep her breath from hiccupping, even biting into her cheek, even digging her bitten-down nails into her knees. Getting up and pacing does nothing but send the room wobbling uneasily around her, make her stomach roil and froth into knots, and usually the scent of the next-day’s curry simmering on the stove is a welcome, a small comfort, but right now it just makes her want to hurl.

Her knees hit the ground next to the trashcan without conscious thought. Morgana presses up against her side, blessedly silent, but even afterwards the weight still stays hard and heavy in her stomach, and that’s when the tears come.

She doesn’t even hear Sakura-san coming up the stairs, curled snivelling over the trashcan like she’s weak, like she’s been brought low by a little vomiting when it’s  _ so much more than that. _ The weight of everything, every single fucking thing that brought her to this exact point bows her shoulders, forces its way out of her in short, sharp sobs like if it sits and festers inside her anymore she’ll explode. Maybe she wants it to. Maybe she  _ wants  _ to shatter into tiny little pieces all over this attic floor, too small to be pieced back together, and then she can fucking  _ rest  _ without any more of these goddamned  _ consequences,  _ hasn’t she had enough?! Hasn’t she been through enough yet?! Can’t the universe give her one single fucking break?!

Morgana says something urgently beside her but she doesn’t listen, can’t hear him even when he wends his way beneath the curve of her body, too deep into her own misery. She doesn’t get any more warning than that when Sakura-san’s hand lands on her shoulder, tilting her up and away from the trash can.

She doesn’t fight. What use is there? He knows, he already knows and this is when he’s gonna tell her to grab her things and get the fuck out of his cafe—

“Kid,” Sakura-san says, obviously startled by whatever he sees in her face. “Kurusu. You look like hell.” 

It takes a moment or three for her mouth to work again, for her to rasp “Feel like it,”  to flinch belatedly and duck her head back down to wait for the retaliation, but it doesn’t come. Sakura-san’s face just goes all pinched and still, and he reaches out and tilts her chin up. It makes her skin crawl, makes her shudder, but he’s got her trapped and she’s so  _ tired  _ of fighting.

“C’mon,” Sakura-san says, “up. Can you walk?”

The hell does he mean, can she walk? Akira blinks up at him a little uselessly.

“Kurusu.” His voice is firm, his face shuttered. “Jeez, I’m too old for this. Go through this enough with…” He trails off into mumbles but Akira pays it no mind because his hands are under his arms and he’s helping her up to her feet, slowly enough that she manages to keep a hold of her wayward stomach. “Get downstairs. I’m gonna call ahead.” 

And that’s it. 

Just like that. 

No time even to gather her things; maybe he’ll be kind enough to send them forward to the detention center she’ll languish in for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t be able to stop the tears from leaking out of her eyes right now if someone held a gun to her head; they keep spilling out no matter how many times she scrubs her face with her sleeve. 

Feet into shoes, and Morgana clinging to her cardigan with every claw, saying things she’s not willing to parse, but she’s more than happy to bring him along for as long as Sakura-san will let her. He’s a warm and comforting weight in her arms, the only warm spot she can feel; everything else is...cold. Hopefully he’ll be able to find his way to Ann or Sakamoto when she finally has to let him go.

Down the stairs, fourteen, a curve, two more, to where Sakura-san is hanging up his phone. He looks at her with wide-eyed surprise at the cat in her arms but she ducks her head to avoid his gaze. Just a little longer, please…

His hand on her shoulder makes her want to flinch out of her skin. She bows under the weight, scrubbing at her face again and again. She’d always thought she’d go to meet her fate with dignity, but she’s so  _ tired. _

Through the streets, blurry and indistinct behind the tears still clinging to her lashes and the way her pulse pounds in her head. Sakura-san leads her down an alley she hasn’t been before, up a set of stairs— is this the local branch of the police office? She gets ready to let Morgana down, but he refuses to move. What a good, kind friend. She wishes she could have gotten him some sushi before they had to part.

The lighting in here is softer, at least. She folds into the closest chair she can find to await whatever’s coming for her.

No officers come to put her back in handcuffs. No lights get shined into her eyes. No stern voices— at least, not at first. Sakura-san’s talking to someone up front, but Akira can’t hear who. Not until they come over and crouch in front of her— Akira catches a glimpse of the least-utilitarian shoes she’s ever seen and a wide swath of white lab coat before a cold, pale hand tipped with long black nails takes her chin and tilts her head up. “You say she’s been vomiting?” a clinical female voice asks. “How long?”

“Don’t know,” Sakura-san grunts. “She’s quiet. Doubt I would’ve known if I hadn’t gone upstairs to tell her I was locking up.” 

This isn’t like the last time at all.

“What’s with the cat?” The doctor— Sakura-san brought her to a  _ doctor??— _ asks; Sakura-san grunts in response. “Hey. You. Look at me.” The nails press in, not anywhere near enough to hurt. Akira lifts her chin enough to glare through her tear-stained glasses. “Huh. Guess you are in there. Put the cat down, I need to examine you.” 

“Go to hell,” Akira grits out before she can help herself, to Sakura-san’s clear dismay and, shockingly enough, the doctor’s amusement. Morgana wriggles free, though, leaving her lap empty and her heart rate spiking. “I thought— what’re you doing?”

“I just said. Examining you.” 

“Don’t you need to— to be in a room first? Aren’t you going to put me in handcuffs?” 

The doctor rocks back on her heels, her face opaque. Sakura-san’s eyebrows go up. “Kurusu-chan, what exactly do you think is going on here?” 

Cruel. All of them. Every last shitty adult in this fucking world is cruel. Without her permission the tears well up and spill over her cheeks again, and she scrubs her arm furiously across her face, careless of how rough her cardigan feels against her oversensitive skin. “You’re arresting me again.” Cruel, for making her say it out loud. “Th-this is the pre-holding exam.” 

“Akira,” Morgana says beside her, his head butted up against her thigh, barely audible above Sakura-san’s surprised noise, “I don’t think—” 

With barely any effort, the doctor stands up, her heels making her tower above Akira. “Come along, then. Sakura, you’re fine to wait out here.” 

There’s no use in fighting. She forces her leaden limbs to obey her and follows the doctor into the examination room, shuffling almost blindly until she bumps into the tissue-paper-covered bed. Morgana hops up beside her as she sits down, and she wants more than anything else to draw him back into her lap, but...

Everything the doctor does is standard. She looks at Akira’s eyes, in her ears, down her throat. She pinches the back of Akira’s hand and mutters something under her breath, wraps a cuff around her bicep and inflates it, but when she goes to slip the stethoscope under Akira’s shirt to listen to her lungs Akira flinches hard enough that her shoulder hits the wall.

The doctor rolls backward at that, both her hands up in the air. Her eyes are furrowed, thoughtful, her black-painted lips twisted. “That’s not a normal reaction,” she says with the air of someone who’s testing the waters.

“Hands’re cold.” It’s a shit excuse, but better than a real explanation.

“Mm-hmm. Tell me, Kurusu-chan. Does Sakura hurt you?” 

“What kind of question is that?” Morgana asks, tail lashing around his haunches. 

Akira ignores him. “No.” 

“Is he the reason you’re flinching like that?” Cold, impersonal, blunt, to the point. It’s actually...relaxing. She can feel her shoulders edging down from where they’re hunched around her ears as she shakes her head. “Is he feeding you?” Another head shake. “Tell me what and how much you’ve been eating and drinking.” 

Akira does— dry ramen, packaged bread at school when she can manage, the few crepes that she’s shared with Ann, and the doctor— she catches a nameplate on the desk, Takemi Tae— notates it all down on her clipboard. “How long have you been vomiting?” 

“Just today.” 

“Any chance you could be pregnant?” 

The question is so casual. It shouldn’t make her freeze up like that, shouldn’t send her gorge rising fast enough that she dry-heaves, but it does, and it makes her furious at herself. “No.” Her voice is almost even when she says it, but Takemi-san’s eyes flick up anyway.

“Mmm. Would you say you’re stressed?”

What a  _ fucking _ question! Takemi-san blinks at Akira’s hoarse laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fucking stressed. I can’t sleep. My stomach hurts all the time. I’m a short step away from getting tossed back in jail, if I violate any fuckin’ article of my probation— ” 

Takemi-san holds up a hand, stopping the flow of words in her mouth. “This isn’t a pre-incarceration exam,” she says, examining her nails. “More of a courtesy visit. You’re obviously unwell.” 

“Thanks,” Akira says with as much bitter sarcasm as she can manage. 

“Tell me your sleep schedule.” 

“What I can get, when I can get it. Can’t sleep through the night. Haven’t been able to for months.” 

“Your school schedule?” 

“It’s— the same as anyone’s?”

“You go to Shujin, correct? Monday through Saturday.” Akira nods. “I see. Take off your blazer and give me your arm. I’m going to take some blood and do some tests.”

An alcohol swab at the crook of her elbow and a tourniquet pulled tight above; Akira’s never had blood leave her body in such a nice and orderly method before. Takemi-san squirts it into a syringe and sets it into a centrifuge on a counter, wrapping her up nice and neat before handing her a pair of small white pills. “Take these.” 

Akira does, but doesn’t put them in her mouth. “What are they?”

“Light sedative. I’ll be sending you home with a bottle of them and a doctor’s note; Sakura will call it into your school tomorrow morning.”

“I have to go to school, though—” 

“You want a stress ulcer?” Takemi-san asks, examining her nails. “Though with the symptoms you’ve given me, you might already have one. That’s what the blood test will be for. Your blood pressure is through the roof, the circles under your eyes are almost as dark as my nail polish, and you’re dehydrated and underweight. I’m prescribing you a solid meal, a full night’s rest, and some medically mandated relaxation time, and if the tests come back positive I’ll also send you along with some antibiotics. I want you back here in a week for a recheck and an update on your sleep schedule and stress levels. Take the pills.” 

She really, really doesn’t want to take the pills, but the look in Takemi-san’s eye quells any protest she could make. They’re dry and scratchy going down, getting stuck in her throat once or twice. “You really couldn’t be bothered to ask for any water to go with it?” 

“I don’t like asking for things,” Akira mutters. 

Takemi laughs a little in response and stands up, her coat swirling around her calves. “The sedative will take effect sometime in the next ten minutes. I want you to sit here until then while I have a talk with your guardian.” She doesn’t look back at Akira’s desultory wave. 

Not ten seconds after the door closes, both she and Morgana have their ears pressed to the crack.

Akira can’t hear anything. She doesn’t want to ask Morgana in the moment, doesn’t want to break his concentration. “You’ll tell me what they say later, right?”

“Course,” Morgana says. “Shh. It’s nothing bad, at least. They’re just talking about you. The doctor sounds mad. She says that Sakura-san should’ve been keeping a better eye on you as his ward, should’ve been making sure you’re okay.”

“I can take care of myself…” It’s a feeble protest; the drugs are kicking in a lot faster than Takemi-san said they would. 

Morgana just shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have to, though. Oh, she’s coming back— quick, get on the bed.” 

When Takemi-san opens the door, Akira’s perched on the edge of the bed like she’s ready to go. (Which she is. Today has been awful and the sedatives are giving her a creeping, tugging feeling of unease at her hindbrain.) “Like I said,” she starts off like she’d never left, brusque and abrupt, “I want you here for a re-check in a week. One of these—” she shakes the small blue bottle in her hand, the tiny pills rattling around inside, “half an hour before you sleep.”

“Why’d you give me two, then?” Akira blurts out.

Takemi just smiles. It’s not a particularly warm or nice smile. “You’re a stubborn one. If I’d just given you one you’d have fought it, wouldn’t you? Just like you’re fighting it now. This—” she holds up the slip of paper in her other hand, “is your medical note. I’m giving this straight to Sakura, because from the looks of you you’re more likely to shred it and go to school anyway.” Akira must make a face, because the doctor laughs. “Yes, just like that. Home rest tomorrow. Three solid meals.”

_ Not going to happen, _ Akira thinks mutinously, visions of her empty wallet dancing in front of her eyes.

Before she’s escorted out, though, Takemi-san offers her a cool wet cloth to wipe her face off with. It’s a kind gesture, one she wasn’t expecting.

  
  


The walk back to LeBlanc is...awkward. Though he’d kept a hand on her shoulder on the way over, now Sakura-san’s hands are deep in his pockets, the smell of his cigarette acrid in the late evening air. There’s not that many people around, thank god; her steps are slow and deliberate because if she moved any faster she thinks she’d probably fall over. 

He looks over at her once, twice, three times. She doesn’t look back, too concerned with putting one foot in front of the other. Morgana trots along at her heels like a well-trained dog (not that she would ever make that comparison to him out loud), and when Sakura-san holds the door open for her he follows her inside as well. “Sit down,” Sakura-san says gruffly when she makes for the stairs. “Get some food into you before you run off.” 

“Not hungry,” she mutters, not turning around, but the sound of a plate hitting the counter makes her twist her head to reluctantly look. It’s just plain rice; as she walks over, Sakura-san pours her a mug of cold milk to go with it.

“It’s nothing fancy,” he says like he has anything to explain to her, “but it’s what the doctor said you should have tonight.”

Begrudgingly, Akira tucks in.

The weight of food in her stomach soothes her, some animal instinct settling down content. She doesn’t gulp it down, but she definitely doesn’t linger.

About halfway in, Sakura-san clears his throat. “I should apologize,” he says, running a towel over the countertop behind the bar. “You’ve been so self-sufficient around here that I— well. Start getting up a little earlier and I’ll make sure to send you off with a good breakfast.”

Akira pauses, the next forkful of rice halfway to her mouth. “You don’t have to do that,” she says, cautious, hesitant.

Sakura-san shakes his head. “Don’t fuss.” There’s a moment of awkward silence; Akira takes the opportunity to shove more rice into her mouth. “So...your parents send you with a food stipend at all? What’ve you been eating?” 

She swallows, once, twice, washing down the lump in her throat with a swig of milk. “Some,” she says. “Um...cup ramen. Some crackers and peanut butter.”

“You spending it on other things?” Sakura-san’s brow furrows, his expression turning dour even as she shakes her head. “Then what?” 

“It’s only  ¥ 3000.” She eats another forkful. “That’s for laundry, too.” She doesn’t mention the amount of Manta and Second Maid she had to splurge on, too. “Don’t have a fridge. Didn’t think I was allowed to use the one down here.” 

Somewhere to her right, Sakura-san sighs long and deep. She keeps her eyes on her plate, chasing the last few grains of rice around. “I still want you to know that I’m keeping a real close eye on you,” he says, “but you’ve kept to the letter and the law of your probation ever since that first morning—”

“I got  _ lost,” _ Akira protests, “I’d never been to  _ Tokyo _ before—” 

Sakura-san raises up a hand, and she stills. “I’ve been harsher than I needed to be,” he finishes. “You’ve been doing alright, kid.”

Oh.

Well.

That— she doesn’t really know what to say to that, or how to respond, but something shivers in her chest, a pale, fragile echo of the moment she spent with Ann a few weeks earlier. Something whispers  _ Hierophant _ into her ear, just as it had whispered  _ Lovers _ , and something tells her that when she finally lays her head down to rest she’ll be spending her dreams in a prison cell in an endlessly blue room.

Her plate vanishes from beneath her nose. Her mug, too. Sakura-san slides something over in its place— a gleaming silver key. “I don’t have the time to come lock you in every evening,” he says. “You’ll start locking up after everything’s done.” 

“Oh…” It’s an exhalation more than a word, soft and weary and yet still a little awed. “I…” 

Sakura-san shakes his head. “Go on. Head upstairs. I’ll bring you something up for breakfast.” 

 

Somehow, her dreams aren’t full of anything but the sound of a voice, faint enough to be almost inaudible.

 

**> >in: group chat 1 [9 new messages]**

**> >from: sakamoto ryuji** ****  
_ akira!!! _ __  
__  
**> >from: takamaki ann** ****  
_ Akira!!! Mona was right he did it! _ __  
__  
**> >from: sakamoto ryuji** ****  
_ akira he effin dropped to his goddamn knees on stage in front of everyone _ __  
__  
**> >from: takamaki ann** **  
** __ Every single filthy thing he did!!!

**> >from: sakamoto ryuji** ****  
_ he was cryin i took pics ill show u later _ __  
__  
**> >from: takamaki ann** ****  
_ I’m so happy I could cry… _ __  
__  
**> >from: sakamoto ryuji** ****  
_ said forget about the expulsion basically so we’re safe _ __  
__  
**> >from: takamaki ann** **  
** __ Where are you? Is everything okay?

**> >from: sakamoto ryuji** **  
** _ ann said she knows where u live we’ll meet u there after school we gotta celebrate _

 

 

She wakes up ravenous, to a handful of missed messages on her phone and the sound of Sakura-san calling “You’ve got guests” up the stairs. There’s barely enough time to roll out of bed before two blond heads come poking around the corner. 

(Thank  _ god _ she doesn’t sleep in the buff, right??)

“The hell’re you doin’ still in bed?” Sakamoto calls, slowing his stride as he gets to the top of the stairs, looking around curiously. 

Ann doesn’t, coming right over to her and taking both her hands. “We did it,” she says, low and proud and vicious. “He called the police on himself. They took him right in front of the school.” 

Her hazy brain takes a moment to process this, but once it hits it’s like a shock of ice water directly into her veins. “Really?” she breathes.

The answering smile she gets, all teeth and no softness, makes her own lips twitch up at the corners.

“Why’s your room like this?” Sakamoto asks loudly from the far corner. “C’mon, get up, get dressed, we gotta go celebrate!!”

On the list of things that Akira wants to do right now, still slightly drugged and somewhat asleep, that’s near the bottom. Lucky for her that Sakura-san comes to her rescue. “Keep it down up here,” he says dourly, “I’m trying to run a business. Whatever you kids are doing is gonna have to wait until tomorrow, Kurusu’s on bed rest.” 

“Really?” Sakamoto turns on his heel— god, where does he get the  _ energy—  _ and crosses the room to peer at her. Akira has to resist the impulse to flinch back, but Ann still has her hands and snaps at him quite nicely for her. “Sorry, sorry. You doin’ okay? You’ve been pretty out of it lately.” 

“Went to the doctor last night,” Akira says, and doesn’t elaborate any further. “I’m on house arrest for today.”

“Then we’ll go tomorrow,” Sakamoto says, implacable; she waits for Sakura-san to speak up again, but the traitor just says “It’d be good for you to get some fresh air” as he walks back downstairs. Goddamnit.

“I can’t do tomorrow,” Ann says, her face a moue of displeasure. “Shiho’s awake and I gotta be there for her.”

“Of course,” Akira says immediately. “Don’t even worry about it.”

“Guess it’s just you and me then, huh?” Sakamoto asks her, and she wants to say no.

She’s pretty sure she  _ does _ say no, in fact.

So when she ends up at a beef bowl shop in Shibuya with him the next day, over every protest she could make (“I can’t afford it right now, Sakamoto—” “I got it covered, don’t worry!”), she really has no one to blame but herself.

...It’s not awful.

The shop is small and tidy, the noodles warm and homemade; the first sip of broth tastes like heaven, and she actually sighs into her bowl a bit. “Good, huh?” Sakamoto asks beside her, clearly pleased. “This is my favorite shop. I’m glad you could come out with me today, Kurusu, you look like you could use a good couple’a beef bowls.” 

“Kinda rude,” Akira mumbles through a mouthful of noodle. Sakamoto doesn’t respond, other than to slurp some more of his own bowl down.

Once she gets over the awkwardness, hanging out here with Sakamoto is actually...relaxing. He carries most of the conversation himself, allowing her to respond with grunts or nods as she pleases. The atmosphere is quiet, the beef bowl delicious, and the tight-coiled spike of anxiety and adrenaline has loosened drastically with a full day’s rest and several good meals.

“So.” He sets his bowl down with a solid clunk. There’s a couple grains of rice clinging to the side of his mouth, but Akira doesn’t bother pointing them out. “Y’never really said what got you sent to Tokyo.” 

“Guess I didn’t.” 

“Alright, alright,” he waves a hand at her, hovering over her bowl with a tong-load of ginger. “You’ve barely touched your food, c’mon, eat up.” 

“What—” She smacks at his hand, but the damage is already done. There’s bright pink ginger in her perfect noodle bowl. “Sakamoto.” 

“It adds good flavor!” 

It does, and she can’t even bring herself to complain about it. Two bites later, she swallows and says, “Assault.” 

“Huh?” Sakamoto peeks over the edge of his bowl at her.

“Assault. Some asshole was trying to force himself onto a lady. I shoved him off and he fell down and hit his head. Got arrested. Got sent here.” Her hands only shake a little as she lays the words out, and she picks her bowl back up to hide it. She doesn’t like making herself vulnerable like this, but he  _ did  _ pay for her food.

“That’s some  _ bullshit, _ Akira,” Sakamoto says, setting his food down again. “Th’ _ hell,  _ man, I’m gettin’ angry just hearin’ about it.”

“Right? And she— the lady didn’t even back me up! She just— she just stood there and  _ lied  _ for him!” The burst of anger is a familiar one, well-worn, like a favorite scarf. She wraps herself up in it. “She didn’t want it. She was asking him to stop. And he wouldn’t.” And that’s as far as she’ll tread down that memory path right now, shying away from the rest with almost a physical flinch.

“Bullshit,” he says again, more emphatically. “You know I got your back from now on, right? Me ‘n Ann, we both do. You ain’t gotta do shit like that alone again. And call me Ryuji, okay? We’re friends, Aki-chan~” His voice drops at the last word, a shit-eating grin spreading wide across his face.

Akira literally cannot control her noise of disgust. “Yeah, okay,  _ Sakamoto. _ ” 

His expression falls.

Abruptly, she finds herself laughing.

It’s a low and rusty noise— she honestly can’t remember the last time she laughed, even at something so small. It’s a nice feeling, soft and warm and almost masking the delicate unfolding sensation high in her chest.  _ Chariot, _ whispers the voice. Confidant. Friend, she guesses.

Only if he stops dumping fucking  _ ginger  _ into her  _ food _ , though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy halloween!!!
> 
> this is probably the last time i'll update until the p5 bb stuff comes out, i've got a long few months ahead of me lmao


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> akira pawns a medal, widens her map, and makes some lifechanging discoveries about the monamobile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEWWO I'M BACK JUST A LITTLE BIT
> 
> my goal for 2019 is one chapter of rage daughter a month!! so next month is gonna be awful because i'm finishing and polishing THREE big bang pieces to be posted first of march as well as whatever the chapter after this'll be. rip canti!!

Pawning the medal is both easier and harder than Akira thought it would be. 

Her pulse hammers high in her chest as she slaps it down on the counter of the pawn shop, the grizzled guy in the seat in front of her barely moving his newspaper aside to look at her. “I want to sell this.” Good. Her voice doesn’t shake and neither do her hands. 

The man looks at her for a moment, grey eyes raking over her dismissively. “Shouldn’t be out this late, little girl,” he grunts, flipping the stick of his lollipop from one corner of his mouth to the other, but folds his newspaper section by section, slow and deliberate, and puts it down half on top of a folded paper bag and a stack of other, older newspapers. He doesn’t bother standing up, just snags the medal and pulls it close to unwind the ribbon from where she’d wrapped it to disguise the golden gleam.

It’s a miracle her white-hot flash of fury doesn’t set this whole fucking shop on fire.

Little girl?  _ Little girl? _ Just because she’s a fucking teenager doesn’t mean he has any right to condescend her! 

Two solid nights of sleep and at least four solid, decent meals have left her feeling less like she’s about to fray apart at the seams. She’s still got a long ways to go before she’s at a hundred percent, but at the very least she’s got enough energy to fight, and few enough targets that the asshole in front of her is looking like a pretty decent one.

And then he stands up, and Akira takes a step back without thinking, because he  _ looms _ over her, even still behind the counter. He’s one of those men that just  _ exude  _ presence, exude menace. Her pulse  _ skyrockets,  _ a cold sweat forming at the back of her neck. The involuntary panic response does nothing but make her even  _ more  _ angry.

He’s not even looking at her! Why is she  _ like _ this?! 

Unravelled far enough, the metal clinks when it hits the glass. The man’s brow furrows. “Where the hell did you get something like this?” he asks, almost to himself. Akira doesn’t answer. If he doesn’t take it, she’ll just throw it in a fucking dumpster or something and apologize to the other two. Or maybe she’ll give it to Ryuji-kun and see if he can find somewhere else to take it. Or maybe she’ll bean this jackass right between the eyes— 

“I’ll give you  ¥20,000 for it.” Lollipop asshole says dismissively, going back to his paper. 

Akira’s hands tighten on the strap of her bag. “I saw online that something like this sells for closer to ¥30,000,” she snaps.” Don’t lowball me.” 

Stupid shitty pawnman pauses in the middle of turning the page. “Does it?” His eyes glint with interest. “Did your research, huh? I’ll go up to ¥25,000.”

She has to inhale very slowly to swallow all the harsh words she wants to say. They stick jaggedly in her throat, but they’re stoppered for now. “What did I just fucking say about lowballing, old man?” 

“Oh- _ ho, _ spitfire, easy there,” stupid-loser-gray-beanie-jerkwad smirks. “¥27,500.”

“Thirty. Thousand.” Her lip curls as she slaps a hand on the counter, intentionally smearing her handprint across the crystal-clear surface to get her fingers back around the medal’s ribbon. She meets his eyes even as her hindbrain screams for her to back up and turn away. Absofuckinglutely not.

The corner of his mouth tilts up. “You’ve got a pair on you, don’t you?” he says, tugging until she lets the ribbon go. “¥30,000 it is.” 

Akira doesn’t move until she’s watched him count the money out from the till, until he’s handing it to her across the counter. She takes it, careful to make sure she doesn’t touch him, and tucks the bills into her bag. Morgana takes them; she feels him shift, tucking them down into the corner and loafing down over them. They’re safe as they could be.

Business over and done with, she takes a moment to scan the shelves, and— oh.

No wonder Ryuji-kun told her to come here.

There’s model guns everywhere. Not just guns— toy knives, fake whips, brass knuckles too, a reenactor’s wet dream. Everything looks miles beyond the stuff they started with in the Metaverse. The display above the proprietor’s head has three different daggers that she immediately and viciously wants to get her hands on, especially the rainbow-hued triple-bladed one. Woof.

This money might be going towards a celebratory buffet, but she’s definitely going to be coming back here as soon as she can.

Hat guy notices her looking. “You gonna buy somethin’ with that money or you just gonna stand there with your jaw on the ground?” he asks, a shitty little smirk on his shitty little face. “Gettin’ pretty dark out there.” 

“I don’t have a fucking bedtime,” Akira snaps, “and if this is how you treat all your customers then it’s no wonder there’s no one else in here.” 

Oh,  _ fuck her running _ , she did  _ not  _ mean to say that out loud— 

Lollipop guy barks a laugh, clearly just as startled, and Akira goes a dull red. “Alright, alright. Take your time.” 

“I  _ will. _ ” And now she has to, for spite’s sake if nothing else. She’s not gonna let this guy chase her out of the most interesting place she’s been to in this godforsaken city so far.

The voices from those weirdos in suits outside get louder as she squats down in front of the glass display case. There’s some little rings and charms and patches, nothing super interesting; what she really wants to look at are the model guns layered up the walls almost to the ceiling, but she’d need a ladder to get as close a look as she wants. Are they kits or do they come pre-assembled? 

She grabs the box nearest her, flipping it over to read the back label. From the counter, she hears asshole-san sigh. It takes a surprising amount of self-control not to sigh back, and louder.

She thinks she has a plan, though. Can’t go for the more expensive ones right off, of course, but there’s a tommy gun up and to the right that looks like it might be convincing, and a decent starter shotgun model a few boxes over. She doesn’t know about her own— none of the models available really speak to her, but there are a couple lower-tier ones that she makes a mental note of. 

Nothing else for it. She’s made her point, she thinks, and is more than ready to leave, but as she passes the counter the guy clears his throat. “Those two guys still out there,” he starts, his hand on the paper bag that he’d put the newspaper over, but as if they’ve been summoned the bells on the door chime as it opens. Lollipop guy’s eyes immediately drop to the paper bag, to the newspaper not nearly covering it enough if he has something to hide in there.

“Iwai-san,” the first man says, while the second looks at her and just as quickly dismisses her. “We have some questions for you.”

Akira has a split second, and she’s never been the best at controlling her impulses. She snatches the bag. “I’m sure my brother’s going to love this, Iwai-san, thank you,” she says in one rushed breath. 

His eyes widen as she takes a step back, then another. Then he  _ grins,  _ the grin of a co-conspirator, and nods. “Glad to help. You come back soon if he doesn’t like it, and we can work out an exchange, y’hear?” 

“Sure.” She’s almost to the door when suit #2 looks at her, moving to block her way. “Scuse me.” 

“Just a moment, little girl.” Next time a man calls her that, her knee is going to meet his balls immediately after. Akira feels her expression darken. “What’s in that bag?” 

“My  _ stuff. _ That I  _ bought.  _ With my  _ money.  _ Can you move, please? I need to get home.” 

“After you show me what’s in the bag.” 

Akira’s getting  _ really fucking sick  _ of men in suits telling her what to do. “Are you a cop? Are you arresting me? Am I under arrest? Are you confiscating my belongings?”

“Now listen here,” suit #1 says, but Akira will fucking  _ not  _ listen here. “We just want—” 

“If you’re not a cop then you’ve got no right to demand me to hand over my  _ personal belongings,  _ you skeevy old fuck, so why don’t you just fuck off and let me leave!” She’s two inches away from committing violence, and she thinks suit #2 sees it in her eyes, because he steps aside.

Iwai’s laughter rings out quiet and husky as she lets the door slam shut behind her. “Oh my  _ god, _ ” she hisses out. Could that have  _ been  _ any more frustrating?!

Morgana pops back up out of her bag. “You shouldn’t swear like that,” he scolds, “you don’t want to have so much attention on you! A phantom thief is a  _ gentleman  _ thief— or, uh, a gentle-lady thief?” 

“I wouldn’t swear so much if people weren’t such dicks,” Akira mutters, looking around. There’s a dark corner at the end of the alley that’s almost fully concealed behind some bicycles and other assorted, layered pieces of trash. She picks her way between them until she’s sure she can’t be seen. “What’s even in this bag, anyway?”

“Open it, open it!” Morgana urges. “It’s gotta be something important— maybe it’s treasure!” 

It’s not treasure.

It’s a gun.

“Is this real?” Akira says in disbelief, immediately crouching down— like anyone could see her, but still. This is  _ absolutely  _ not something she wants to be caught with on probation.

On second, closer glance it’s fake, but it’s a very very good fake. She doesn’t take it fully out of the bag to look closer, but she wants to. It’s got a nice heft to it, a weight that she’s sure would transfer quite nicely over. It’s a sentiment that Morgana agrees to immediately and enthusiastically. “You should buy it from him!” 

“Or I could just—” But no, she can’t even finish the thought. She’s a thief, absolutely, but not that sort of thief.

Anything else Morgana has to say is cut off when the door to Untouchable opens again, the two suits walking out. Akira ducks a little further, draws on that stillness she made such good use of in the Metaverse until she’s one with the shadows.

They don’t even look over at her, muttering and grumbling to themselves as they walk out of the alley and back into Shibuya proper. She waits a moment more, then another; once she’s sure it’s clear she folds the paper bag back over, nice and tidy, and exits the trash conglomeration.

This time, she doesn’t slam it down on the counter. She sets it down hard enough that it thunks, but not anywhere near hard enough to damage it. Iwai meets her eyes, though there’s a disconcerted furrow in his brows. “I want to buy this.” 

Iwai laughs in her face. 

Not the reaction she was expecting.

“I’ll tell you right now, girlie, that ¥30,000 isn’t gonna cover it,” he says, snagging the bag back and tucking it below the counter. Akira huffs, irritated. 

“Then hold it for me until I can afford it.” 

“Don’t do holds here.” There’s a spark in his eye that she doesn’t really like, but it’s not the kind that sets off her warning bells. “Though I guess I should thank you for that quick thinking.” 

“Thank me by letting me have the gun,” Akira says immediately. He laughs again. “I’m serious.” 

“I bet you are.” He grins at her without warmth, a there-and-gone flash of teeth. “How serious?” 

“What does that even mean?” 

Iwai points to the far wall, at the broom in the corner. “Start with the floor, and we’ll go from there.” 

What the fuck? 

“You want that gun,” he says, picking up the folded newspaper and opening it back to his page, “you’re gonna have to work for it.” 

“Are you...offering me a job?”

“Consider it an interview.” The newspaper rustles.

Akira’s never been able to back down from an obvious challenge in her goddamn life. She sets the bag with Morgana in it carefully onto the nearest shelf and grabs the broom. If looks were lasers, this whole fucking shop would just be on fire. “I want the gun,” she warns.

“And I want a clean floor. So start with that and we’ll see about making a deal.” She can hear the smirk in his voice, and her retaliation comes a few minutes later when she whacks the handle of the broom into his legs two or three times when he won’t move out of her way.

She makes that floor fucking  _ sparkle. _

She doesn’t get to leave with the gun, but he slides her three additional, crisp thousand-yen notes across the glass counter before she goes. “Stop by in a day or two,” he says. “I’m sure I’ll have something for you to do.” 

“That’s a really fucking creepy way to say that, ojii-chan,” Akira tells him, and his dry laughter chases her out of the shop for the second time that night.

 

“Are you gonna go back?” Morgana asks later that night, sprawled out on the bed beside her idly grooming one paw. “It could be helpful, especially if working there gets you a discount. You didn’t seem all that comfortable, though…” 

Akira stares at the ceiling rafters, her fake glasses already folded up and tucked on the windowsill beside her charging phone. “Probably,” she says fuzzily after a moment or three. “That guy’s an asshole and I’m not gonna let him get one over on me.” 

_ “Language, _ ” Morgana sighs, but Akira’s already closed her eyes.

  
  


Her life has gotten somewhat easier in the days after her minor emotional breakdown, after Kamoshida’s confession and the disappearance of his threats (none of which ever made it as far as Leblanc, to Akira’s vast relief). Her relationship with Sakura-san has gone from a “pretend I don’t exist please” mentality to an uneasy truce of sorts; she comes home by 9pm and helps him with the dishes in the cafe, and in return he doesn’t ask too many questions about what she does when she’s out and about.

He also starts teaching her how to make coffee, though she’s strictly forbidden from so much as touching the french press when she’s not being directly supervised.

Her first cup is so bitter it makes her gag, but she still drinks the whole thing. It’s a gutsy move, even if she can’t taste anything for the next six hours, and one that makes Sakura-san laugh under his breath. “You’ll get better,” he tells her as she’s rinsing her mouth out in the bathroom. “Probably. No one’s first cup is perfect.” 

“I could probably make a killing marketing that as pesticide,” she says hoarsely. It startles another laugh out of him, one that follows her out of the cafe and into the streets of Yongen proper.

For the last month or so, her world’s been narrow— a straight line to the subway, a straight line to school, a straight line home. Ann (emphatically not Ann-chan, she’d shut Akira down the first time she tried) and Ryuji-kun have invited her other places, but aside from the diner (which she couldn’t reliably get back to if she tried, this city is a hot fuckin’ mess) and that one beef bowl place (she doesn’t even remember the line they took to get there, much less the name of the stop) that’s all she’s done.

That changes, slowly and carefully.

Her world unfolds— Yongen first, slowly, as she carefully pokes around the back alleys around Leblanc. Then Shibuya; she finds Untouchable, the pawn shop, and locates the diner with the crepes again, but the press of people crowding the streets is still too much for her frayed nerves, and she skitters back into the relative open space of the square.

There’s a politician that speaks there after school one day. His face is tired, but his eyes are kind. Akira listens to him speak, just at the fringes of the small crowd surrounding him, but not for long.

In the underground walkway, there’s a flower shop. It’s small but lush in a way that draws her immediately— she hasn’t seen this much greenery since she left Inaba. They’re all cultivated flowers, so there’s barely any smell to them, but she lingers over broad leaves and bright petals for long enough that Morgana has to tap her on the neck once or twice, long enough that the lady manning the storefront asks her if she needs anything.

Her face burns as she buys a packet of fertilizer with some of her pocket change. The houseplant in the attic could use it.

Oh, that’s another thing that’s changed— pocket money, and how she gets it, and the amount of time she spends in the underground walkway, near the lowest subway terminals.

Turns out the Metaverse isn’t just accessed at the school. Turns out there’s a whole ever-shifting, disconcerting network of tunnels that reaches down further than any subway should ever go. It looks almost identical— there’s platforms and trains and people waiting for them, travelling ever onward into the depths, but all the people have yellow eyes and the trains move faster than any real train could, should, or would ever move.

The faintest part of her, full of insatiable curiosity, wants to hitch a ride on the back of one of those trains and travel into oblivion with it. The rest of her squashes that thought down flat as soon as it pops up.

A week ago, she probably would have. Now, she’s got better things to do, and a proper outlet for the aggression that’s started to pool within her now that she’s better-fed and more well-rested.

The Shadows in these levels of Mementos are nothing she hasn’t seen before, nothing the four of them didn’t encounter in Kamoshida’s castle. She knows their weaknesses, knows where to hit to send them sprawling towards the ground. Some of them ask to join her, say that they’re her, that she’s them. She refuses them one by one. 

Her head feels crowded enough as it is, and between Skull, Panther, and Mona, they’ve got a good range of skills covered. Maybe if that changes she’ll allow another Shadow to join her menagerie, but...not now. Not now.

They don’t go into another all-out attack, but Mona teaches them a few new tricks. The baton pass is one.

(“Where does it come from??” she hears Skull hissing after a particularly successful one between himself and Panther, ozone still crackling in the air so much Joker can taste it. “Where does it go?” 

“Does it matter?” Panther hisses back, but Joker catches her looking at her palms a little thoughtful, a little disturbed. She wants to know just as much, but doesn’t want to ask. There’s a lot about the Metaverse she doesn’t understand, and mostly wants to keep that way.

Somehow, she suspects, knowing how it worked would just make it worse.) 

(Like, figuring out how a cat turns into a perfectly drivable bus.) 

It makes sense; Mementos is the palace of the public unconscious, not just one person, right? It makes sense for it to be massive. A big, massive pain in her ass, like everything else in Tokyo has been.

But Morgana is a good friend, a comfort and a confidant, and if getting to the bottom of the hell-tunnels will help him, then she’ll get to the bottom of the hell-tunnels.

Even if she has to walk.

She exhales harshly and leans forward a little further but— no. 

“What’s the hold-up?” Skull asks curiously, leaning forward into the gap between herself and Panther. “Just hit the gas and let’s go!” 

“Back it up, back it up,” Panther says, her gloved palm driving Skull’s head back, ignoring his “ow-ow-ow-ow- _ ow!” _ without a bat of her eyelashes. “We’re working on it.” 

If she just stretches, maybe?

But she’s already on the very edge of the seat— 

“Joker, I can’t drive myself,” Mona says insistently, from...somewhere, and Joker hisses a curse out from between her teeth. 

She can’t reach the gas pedal. She can barely touch the brake with the tip of her boot. The seat’s too far away.

Behind her head, Skull and Panther are bitching at each other again, like two kittens trying to play-box but falling all over each other instead. She’s too busy to pay them any attention, but some of the finer points come through— Skull’s offer to drive gets met with an offended hiss and the engine’s rpms skyrocket, and that’s enough to make her whirl around, slapping her arm across the back of the seat. 

Her glare is enough to bring the two of them to a peaceful silence.

When she’s decided they’re sufficiently cowed, she grits out “Don’t car seats have adjustable levers?” 

So do Monabuses, it turns out, though poor Panther ends up almost crunched against the dashboard and elects to sit in back with Skull for the majority of the trip.

Afterwards, she’s so sweaty and stiff and gross-feeling that a bathhouse trip is a necessity. She still hates how public it is, hates not having the safety of her own enclosed space to kick back and soak in a tub, and so she’s been sticking with showers for the past month or so. The hot water beats down almost uncomfortably hard on the back of her neck, hot enough that steam billows around her, makes it difficult to breathe.

It feels nice on the bruises on her ribs and shoulders, relaxing muscles no longer used to strenuous activity. God, she’s out of shape. She bends down, reaching for her toes, and immediately has to snort water out of her nose. Dumb move. She tries again, deliberately angling herself out of the stream this time, and can barely make her fingers touch her toes.

Well, shit. She used to be able to fold herself in half like a piece of wet laundry, hands wrapped all the way around both arches. She used to be able to dance for hours without losing her breath, used to be able to handspring all the way across the gymnasium floor without losing her balance once.

That’s something she needs back, especially if she’s going to be fighting metaphysical monsters in a cognitive mindscape on the regular, which it looks like she  _ is. _

But then she wobbles, staggering forward hard enough that she bonks her head into the wall, abruptly woozy and reminded forcefully that her last meal was about twelve hours ago. Her limbs are still traitorously weak sometimes, reluctant to obey her. She supposes, grudgingly, that the month she can still barely remember, the month spent stressed up to her eyeballs and snapping fitfully at everything that moved, is enough of a reason for that. 

She’s still not at a hundred percent, but she’s  _ tired  _ of recuperating.

And her hair’s getting long enough to brush against the nape of her neck again, long enough to feather disconcertingly along bare skin in a way that makes her want to take a pair of scissors to it again. It sticks awkwardly against still-damp skin no matter how well she dries off, and the only thing worse than wet hair on her neck is putting it up into a ponytail and exposing herself.

 

With the majority of the money she got from pawning the medal, they go out to eat. 

Ann chooses the place, an expensive buffet in a hotel that makes Akira want to jump right out of her skin just stepping foot inside. It’s full of men in suits and women in fancy clothing, adults that look at the three of them like they’ve all rolled in shit before they came inside. (Akira spent nearly two hours in the bathhouse before getting on the subway that afternoon, she  _ knows _ she doesn’t. It’s just because they’re  _ assholes. _ ) 

They all gorge themselves a little too much, Akira slipping pieces of sushi into her bag for Morgana to tear into with quiet bliss. She knows she shouldn’t, but it’s been...she honestly doesn’t know how long it’s been since she’s had this much unrestricted access to food. 

And besides, it’s an “all you can eat” buffet, right? She wants all she can eat. 

Roast duck, roast beef, mashed potatoes whipped light as air, a clear broth soup so hot it brings tears to her eyes, salmon and fatty tuna that almost melt on her tongue, jasmine rice and three— no, four— different types of dessert pastries, plus the two trips to the chocolate fountains after she found the tray of fresh fruit, and by the time she sets her fork down she knows she’s more than overdone it.

Ryuji-kun looks just as queasy as she feels. “Bathroom?” he says unsteadily, and she nods rather than open her mouth. “I saw ‘em this way—  _ ulp— “  _

“Jeez, you two,” Ann mumbles, her fork halfway to her mouth. “You gonna make it alright?”

Akira, bound and determined to take slow, careful steps and not move her head too much, grunts.

At least she makes it to the toilet. All that rich, heavy food doesn’t taste nearly as nice coming up as it did going down.

She should’ve known better. She’s still on a mostly bland diet back at the cafe; plain rice and toast, bananas and milk. She probably shouldn’t have had the coffee she’s been drinking in the evenings, but it hasn’t upset her too much. Not like this did. Her checkup with Takemi-san is tomorrow; she’ll probably have to mention this.

She flushes, washes her face and mouth, and meets Ryuji-kun back outside. Neither of them meet each other’s eyes, a little embarrassed, a little humiliated. 

It makes the encounter with the bald asshole and his entourage that much more bitter with the taste of bile still on the back of Akira’s tongue. Something about him pings her hindbrain something fierce, makes her knees even weaker than they already feel, ties her (thankfully) empty stomach into such fierce knots that she feels like she might vomit again. 

It’s enough to make her nod with wordless, vengeful enthusiasm when Ryuji-kun suggests that they keep the Phantom Thieves going. If she can stop even one more shitty adult from taking advantage of someone like her, or Ann, or Ryuji-kun again— well.

Wouldn’t it be worth it? 

She thinks it would.

(And so does the weird long-nosed asshole who still won’t leave her dreams alone.)

  
  


She forges links.

The fool. The magician. The lovers. The chariot. The hierophant. The sun. The moon. The hanged man. Death, which makes her hesitate each time she sets foot inside the back-alley clinic. Intangible bonds that weave a web between herself and a handful of people, firing off like neurons whenever she interacts with them. She can ignore it, mostly. It makes her feel a little sleazy if she thinks about it too much, like she’s just using people to fuel her otherworldly powers. 

She’s not, she swears. She was gonna spend this whole year with her head ducked down and anger burning through every inch of her veins like wildfire, but now it’s banked down to quiet embers, still present but muted. She has the space she didn’t have before to breathe, the space to look out past herself.

And...it’s nice, having kindred spirits to spend time with.

Especially when it comes to studying for the exams coming up after the holidays, a prospect that makes her want to go back to ripping her hair out until Ann invites her to the diner for a few study dates. Ryuji-kun comes too, sits on the inside of the booth opposite her and looks just as morosely at his English workbooks as she does her math.

It’s soothing to know she’s not the only one struggling, and the bright little  _ pings  _ of connection she feels along the ties that bind them aren’t half bad either.

She gets one from Takemi-san the day of her checkup, after all the poking and prodding and pinching and swabbing, after she leaves Akira with another light bottle of sleeping pills and the okay to go back to her regular diet, but to eat  _ enough _ . She doesn’t let Akira go immediately, sitting in her swivel chair looking her up and down. 

Akira looks right back at her, one hand in her bag resting lightly on Morgana’s back. Takemi-san’s lips quirk up, but the stalemate isn’t broken until Akira shakes the pill bottle. “I don’t want these.”

“You’ll take them anyway.” 

Akira huffs, a frustrated noise. “No, I don’t— I don’t want Sakura-san to keep paying for dumb shit, and I don’t want to pay for them either. I don’t  _ want  _ them.” Not when Takemi-san has so many other items she could use— if cans of Manta and band-aids heal in the Metaverse, imagine what actual medicine could do! She’d much rather use her portion of loot (carefully divided four ways, with Morgana graciously throwing his share in with her own) for helpful things.

And maybe some food she can keep up in the attic, so she doesn’t have to keep relying on Sakura-san for her two squares a day.

Takemi-san leans back in her chair, eyelids falling halfway to shutter in a calculated motion. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a teenage girl so eager to run herself into the ground,” she murmurs, mostly to herself. “I’m looking for a guinea pig for some clinical trials, but—” 

“I’ll do it, if it gives me a discount,” Akira says immediately. 

_ “But— _ ” Takemi-san says a little louder, one finger in the air, “not you. Not when you’re underweight and dehydrated, and maybe not even then. You’re too short for a proper control subject.” 

“I’m fucking, barely four centimeters under average! Fuck off with that!” Her hands fist in the shitty paper covering the examination table. “What if I found you someone who could?” 

Takemi-san’s pretty painted nails tap-tap-tap against the arm of her chair. “Then,” she says, “we could come to an arrangement.” 

  
  
  
  


Akira has several skills. Some of them are intrinsic, some of them she’s honed well. Some of them she didn’t discover until she needed them.

So when Ann starts fidgeting on the platform waiting for the train one morning, darting glances left and right, her fingers twisting in the end of her twintail, Akira immediately tenses. 

It might be nothing— shit, it probably  _ is _ nothing, but… she scans the crowd, seeing nothing. She scans it again. And again.

Finally cluing in, Ryuji leans over from the step above them. Akira has to fight to keep herself from taking one more step back. “The two of you are real fidgety,” he notes. “Somethin’ wrong?” 

Ann makes a disgruntled noise. “I just...I know it’s dumb, but I’ve felt like someone’s watching me lately…” 

“It’s not dumb,” Akira tells her quietly. “It’s a good, useful instinct. Just keep an eye out.” 

So they do, on the train and off the train and up the stairs, and halfway up Ann twists around to look back down. “Oh my god!” she hisses, which makes Akira’s pulse spike way too fast, spinning around herself. “That guy— the tall one, he just got off the train!”

“Is the the one following you?” Akira asks, searching, searching— 

Behind them, Ryuji yawns and cracks his back. Ann smacks him in the ribs. “At least pretend to care, asshat!” 

“Fine, fine! You don’t gotta hit, ow!” he complains. “C’mon, we’ll go up here.” 

They’re waiting in a tight block when the guy emerges from the subway tunnels. Adrenaline runs like lighting through Akira’s veins, filling her with jittery, unhappy energy, her pulse pounding in her ears. Ryuji’s still unconcerned, which infuriates her, but not enough to do anything about it.

She watches like a hawk as the guy all but demands Ann model for him. She doesn’t recognize the name of the painter he’s apprenticed to but Ann does, and she takes the tickets he gives her, Akira peeking over her arm to read it. “Madarame,” she says under her breath. “Didn’t we hear—” 

“A Shadow in Mementos, yeah,” Ryuji-kun finishes, thoughtful. “Think we should check it out? I’m not all that into art, so…” 

“We should.” Akira isn’t all that into art either, but if Madarame is a lead, then they need to follow it.

“I don’t trust that guy,” Morgana growls. He hasn’t stopped staring in the direction the car went, his hackles raised, his tail lashing. Akira doesn’t either, but probably for different reasons. His fixation on Ann is something she’s gotta deal with, but carefully, and she’s not quite sure how to go about it.

It’s almost soothing to have a direction to point herself in again. She folds the ticket and sticks it into her wallet, hefting Morgana’s bag a little higher onto her shoulder. “We’ll figure it out,” she says, shifting back as Ann and Ryuji-kun turn to face her. It’s still strange, how they’ve gravitated towards her as some sort of leader-ly person in matters like this.

They’ve got a lot of trust in her. She needs to make sure she lives up to that.

And if something’s really up with this Madarame, then the Phantom Thieves will have their next heart to steal.

**Author's Note:**

> a bajillion thanks to lody for helping me whip my words into proper shape and catching all the weird things i do with punctuation, i appreciate you so much <33


End file.
